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Xibrarg ot Ibistorical IRovels an£> IRomances 

EDITED BY GEORGE LAURENCE GOMME 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 






























' 
















. 










X 








' 










Wiliam i. 


THE 


CAMP OF REFUGE 


BY CHARLES MACFARLANE 


u 


EDITED WITH INTRODUCTION 
AND NOTES BY 
GEORGE LAURENCE GOMME 



flew poifc 

LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 

Westminster 

ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE AND CO. 

1897 





o 

O 



Edinburgh : T. and A, Constabi k, Printers to Her Majesty 


PREFACE 


England does not possess a national epic and but few 
national traditions. But its literature is enriched by 
romances, dramatic and narrative, founded on the 
events of almost all epochs in the national history. 
The quality of these romances varies, of course, but 
some of them are of classical value, many are far above 
the average of fiction, and nearly all are of interest and 
value to the literary history of the country. 

It is proposed to reproduce such of these romances 
as are available and suitable for the purpose, in a 
uniform series, arranged under the reigns of the 
sovereigns to which they belong. 

The value which this series must possess for 
educational purposes has influenced to a very con¬ 
siderable extent the plan adopted by the editor for 
presenting each volume to the public. The well- 
known attraction of a good historical novel to the 
young will be made use of to direct attention to 
the real history of the period of which each story 
was intended by its author to be a representation. 
To refer the reader to the genuine authorities of the 
period ; to give as far as possible a short account of the 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


• • 

11 

period, and of the characters introduced; to present 
illustrations of costumes, buildings, and facsimiles of 
signatures; and to give examples of the language of 
the period, is not only to introduce young students to 
these books as interesting examples of English litera¬ 
ture and phases of English literary history, but to 
bring home to them, in connection with pleasant 
associations, most of the really important events in 
English history. Every reign, practically, will be 
represented by at least one story and sometimes by 
more than one, and in this way the series will 
gradually take the reader through the entire annals 
of English history. 

Many works of established reputation, together 
with others not so well known to the modern reader 
as they deserve to be, will thus appear in a new light 
and with new surroundings, among the most distin¬ 
guished of the authors being Scott, Thackeray, 
Kingsley, Lytton, Leigh Hunt, Daniel Defoe, John 
Galt, Oliver Goldsmith, Charles Dickens, Lord 
Beaconsfield, Ainsworth, and others. 

The first volumes of the series cover the period of 
the Norman Conquest, namely, Lord Lytton’s Harold , 
the Last of the Saxons (1848), and the present volume. 

The issue will not be in chronological order, but 
will rather aim at dealing with the different reigns in 
accordance with the interest of the subject matter 
treated of by the author of the representative story. 
Gradually, however, the several reigns will be filled up ; 
and while the unity of the series will not therefore be 
affected, the interest of readers will be quickened by 


PREFACE 


• • • 
m 

their attention not being confined to a strictly chrono¬ 
logical order of events. For educational purposes, too, 
it is desirable that books relating to different periods 
should be available as early as possible. 

Having treated of the greatest event in English 
history in the two first volumes of the series, namely, 
the Norman Conquest, the next volume to be issued 
will refer to a scarcely less important event, namely, 
the attempted Spanish Conquest of England in the 
reign of one of our greatest sovereigns, Elizabeth. 
This volume is, of course, Charles Kingsley’s Westward 
Ho! 

The editor has received many letters of suggestion 
and encouragement, and will always be thankful for 
communications on books belonging to the series. 

G. L. GOMME. 


24 Dorset Square, N.W. 








* 

























































CONTENTS 


INTRODUCTION . 
GLOSSARY AND NOTES 


PAGE 

ix 

lxviii 


CHAPTER 

I. THE MESSENGER ...... 

II. THE SUCCURSAL CELL ..... 

III. THE GREAT HOUSE AT ELY .... 

IV. THE MONKS OF ELY FEAST . 

V. THE MONKS OF ELY TAKE COUNSEL . 

VI. IVO TAILLE-BOIS AND THE LADIE LUCIA , 
vii. hereward’s RETURN ..... 

VIII. LORD HEREWARD GOES TO GET HIS OWN . 

IX. ELFRIC THE EX-NOVICE, AND GIROLAMO OF 
SALERNO, PREPARE TO PLAY AT DEVILS 

X. THE HOUSE AT CROWLAND .... 

XI. THE LINDEN-GROVE AND LADIE ALFTItUDE 

XII. THE MARRIAGE AND THE AMBUSCADE 

XIII. HOW LORD HEREWARD AND HIS LADIE LIVED AT EY 

XIV. HEREWARD IS MADE KNIGHT .... 

XV. THE CASTLE AT CAM-BRIDGE AND A BATTLE . 

XVI. THE TRAITOROUS MONKS OF PETERBOROUGH 

XVII. HEREWARD GOES TO BRUNN, AND IS DISTURBED 


I 

15 

34 

48 

64 

81 

90 

103 

126 

133 

150 

162 

178 

189 

204 

215 


THERE 


V 


228 



VI 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


CHAPTER PAGE 

XVIII. THE DANES AND THEIR KING’S SON . . 247 

XIX. THE NORMAN WITCH . . . . .271 

XX. THE NORMAN DUKE TRIES AGAIN . . . 202 

XXI. THE MONKS OF ELY COMPLAIN AND PLOT . 296 

XXII. HEREWARD BRINGS CORN AND WINE TO ELY . 3 1 9 

XXIII. A CHAPTER AND A GREAT TREASON . . 345 

XXIV. THE DUNGEON ...... 36 7 

XXV. THE NORMANS IN THE CAMP . . . . 38 1 

XXVI. A FIRE AND A RESCUE ..... 397 

XXVII. HEREWARD STILL FIGHTS .... 407 

XXVIII. THE HAPPY END.. 4 1 5 



LIST OF ILLUS THAT IONS 


FACE PAGE 

ANGLO-SAXON MINSTRELS (CottOllittll MSS.} . . xxi " 

ANGLO-SAXON MINSTRELS AND GLEEMEN ( Cottonian 


MSS.) 


xxiii" 


ANGLO-SAXON DRINKING AND MINSTRELSY (Hfirleidll 


MSS. No. 603) .xxiv " 

a norman carousal ( Bayeux Tapestry ) . . xxvi''' 

s. guthlac’s cross ...... xxxv / 

SITE OF HEREWARD’s CASTLE .... XXXvii'* 

MAP SHOWING THE ROUTE BY WHICH WILLIAM I. 

APPROACHED ELY ..... xlvii ^ 

HEREWARD’s MOUND AT ELY, SUPPOSED TO BE THE SITE 

OF THE LAST STAND ..... xlix x 

A MAPP OF THE GREAT LEVELL (FROM DUGDALE’s HitiOVlJ 

of Imbanking ) ...... liii * 

MAP OF THE DISTRICT, FROM THE ORDNANCE SURVEY liv ' 
KENNEPH’S BOUNDARY—STONE IN WELLAND WASH . lvi' 

THORNEY ABBEY CHURCH ..... Iv'l'C 

section of canoe found near lynn (Cambridge Anti- 

... z' 

quarian Society, vol. iv.) . . . Iviii 

CROWLAND ABBEY CHURCH ..... lix 

vii 




Vlll 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


FACE PAGE 


CASTLE MOUND AT CAMBRIDGE .... lx^ 

PRECINCT OF THE PRIORY OF SPALDING (FROM DUGDALE’s 

Moiiasticon ) ...... lxi ^ 

CASTLE MOUND AT CAMBRIDGE .... lxi / 

ECCLESIASTICAL SCULPTURES SHOWING COSTUME IN SAXON 

times ....... lxii 

anglo-saxon house ( Harleian MSS. No. 603) . lxiv' 

SILVER PENNY OF WILLIAM I. lxvii 


INTRODUCTION 


The point in the romance of English history which 
was reached in Lord Lytton’s Harold was the defeat 
of the West Saxon army at Hastings, resulting in 
the death of the last of the Saxon Kings and the 
triumph of William Duke of the Normans, henceforth 
to be known as King of the English. The next stage 
in English fiction is only four years forward, and 
belongs practically to the same cycle of events. Two 
books have been devoted to these events: one is 
Charles Kingsley’s Hereward the Wake , and the other 
is Macfarlane’s Camp of Refuge. It is not possible to 
include Kingsley’s fine romance in the present series, 
but in adopting Macfarlane’s book for the purpose it 
will be found that ample justice is done to the fictional 
representation of the struggle of the English against 
the Norman. 

The hero of that struggle was Hereward, a name 
which has become absorbed into English historical 
romance as typical of some of the best qualities of the 
English character. 

If Harold, last of the Saxon kings, is the foremost 
English hero of the Norman Conquest, Hereward, un¬ 
crowned and almost unknown, assuredly stands next. 
Gurth and Leofwine Godwinsson, as great perhaps as 

b 


X 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


Harold, are overshadowed by their brother; Edwin 
and Morcar are overshadowed by their own acts ; 
Waltheof was the hero of one desperate fight, and was 
then cruelly murdered ; Siward Barn, Leofric of Peter¬ 
borough, Godric of Berkshire, heroes all, were not 
heroes of the people; while all other of the Saxons 
are the unnamed heroes of a conquered nation. It is 
not, however, the lessening of the fame of others 
which causes the fame of Hereward to rise. His is 
true fame. It was won in a desperate and, as it turned 
out, a hopeless cause ; it was won in the cause of his 
countrymen, and it was voiced from the hearts of those 
who loved the cause. Whatever view be taken of 
Hereward as an historical character, the plain fact 
remains that after Harold had died in defending his 
country from the last foreign invader who has landed 
on her shores, Hereward alone of all who remained to 
fight was staunch and faithful, was unselfish and un¬ 
blemished, Hereward alone was able to make a stand 
and teach William that England was not entirely won 
even by such a victory as Hastings. 

The events in which Hereward was the chief actor 
are fairly well recorded in history, but the personality 
of Hereward himself is a matter of much doubt, in 
which different historians have taken different views. 

Harold, marching from Stamfordbridge in the north, 
placed himself across William’s path at Hastings. 
William, marching over the dead bodies of the defenders 
to begin the conquest of the country then laid open to 
his attack, had to meet local insurrections at Exeter, 
at York, in the north and elsewhere, the only effective 


INTRODUCTION 


xi 


stand being made at Ely under the leadership of Here- 
ward in 1070, four years after Hastings. Who then 
was this Hereward, able to withstand the conqueror of 
Harold, who had previously shown himself the greatest 
of soldiers by conquering the foremost captain of his 
age at Stamfordbridge ? Clearly, this last of the 
English, as Kingsley unhappily calls him, was a great 
soldier if only by comparison of the success he gained 
with the failure of those who had preceded him in 
the fight. But he is known to history only in his 
capacity as leader in the defence of Ely against William, 
and there is not much recorded of him. Where history 
has failed, however, legend and song have been busy, 
and the difficulty is to separate what is true in the 
legendary account in order to add it to the meagre 
account of history. It is necessary to attempt this 
task, however, before proceeding to the actual events 
which are the ground-work of Macfarlane’s story. 
There are difficulties and contradictions and myth to 
contend with in the legendary accounts, but they are 
undoubtedly the traditions of the people concerning a 
hero who has forced his name into English history, and 
of whom those who related the traditions were proud. 

The historical authorities who record facts about 
Hereward are :— 

Domesday (edited by Sir H. Ellis). 

Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (in Rolls Series of Chronicles). 

Florence of Worcester (in English Historical Society 
Series, 2 vols.). 

Henry of Huntingdon (in f Anglicarum rerum Scrip- 
tores * by Savile). 


xii „ THE CAMP OF REFUGE 

Simeon of Durham (in ' Anglicanae Historic Scrip- 
tores * by Twysden). 

Hugo Candiclus (in Sparke’s ‘ Historic Anglicanae 
Scriptores ’). 

And the legendary authorities are : 

Gaimar Estorie des Engles (in Caxton Society’s 
Series). 

GestaHeremardi Saxonis (in Caxton Society’s Series). 

Ingulf Historia Croylandensis (in Gale’s f Rerum 
Anglicarum Scriptores/ vol. i.). 

Historia Eliensis (edited by D. J. Stewart, 1848). 

My first point will be to ascertain how history and 
legend respectively deal with the pre-heroic times of 
Hereward’s career—that is to say, his life before the 
defence of Ely. 

If we begin with Domesday we find two classes of 
entries, distinguished from each other in an important 
particular, relating to a Hereward (namely Hereuuard ) 
having lands in Lincolnshire in the time of King 
Edward and not at the formation of the survey, and 
Hereuuard having lands in Warwickshire in the time of 
King Edward and also at the formation of the survey, 
when he also held lands in Worcestershire. Moreover, 
there is another important distinction in these entries. 
The Warwickshire Hereward held his lands prin¬ 
cipally of the Earl of Mellent, but it is recorded that 
in the time of King Edward he held them as a free¬ 
man. The Lincolnshire Hereward has no such dis¬ 
tinction stated of him, for he held his land of the 
Abbot of Peterborough, or of the Abbot of Crowland. 

These distinctions raise the presumption that the 


INTRODUCTION 


Xlll 


entries relate to different persons, a presumption which 
Mr. Freeman hints at {Hist. Norm. Conq. iv. 826), and 
Mr. Round concludes to be a fact {Feudal England, p. 162). 
If this be so we may dismiss the Warwickshire and 
Worcestershire Hereward, and turn to the entries 
relating to the Lincolnshire Here ward. He held of 
the Abbot of Peterborough at Witham and Man thorp 
and Toft with Lound, 12 bovates of land. This hold¬ 
ing was his patrimony, but besides this entry there are 
two others which occur in the Clamores de Chetsteven 
(tom. i. fol. 376 b.) : f Terrain Asford in Bercham hund. 
dicit Wapentak non habuisse Herewardum die qua 
aufugiit/ and on folio 377, ‘ Terram S. Guthlaci quam 
tenet Ogerus in Repinghale dicunt fuisse dominicam 
firmam monachornm. Vlchel abbatem commendasse 
earn ad firmam Hereuuardo, sicut inter eos conueniret 
unoquoque anno, sed abbas resaisiuit earn antequam 
Hereuuardus de patria fugeret, eo quod conuentionem 
non tenuisset.’ 

The latter of these entries takes us back to the days 
before the Conquest. It relates that the lands of 
S. Guthlac (i.e. Crowland Abbey) in Ripinghale had 
been let out to Hereward by Abbot Ulfcytel on terms 
to be agreed upon betwxen themselves; but as Here- 
ward did not keep his agreement, Ulfcytel took the 
land back into his own hands. Now Abbot Ulfcytel 
was not appointed until 1062, and so this event cannot 
have happened until after that date. This gives only 
four years to the battle of Hastings, and eight to the 
chief events in the defence of Ely which have 
made Hereward’s name famous. Professor Tout in his 


XIV 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 

interesting account of Hereward in the Dictionary oj 
National Biography suggests that ‘ the unruly character 
of Hereward is borne out both by this’ and by the 
other passage in the survey. But this point appears 
to me at least doubtful, and would probably not have 
occurred to his biographer had not the Hereward which 
Kingsley has depicted for us grown into the ideal of 
Hereward in modern times. 

The other entry is more important, for it bears upon 
the story of Here ward’s banishment from England, 
which is stated in the Gesta Herervardi to have taken 
place when he was eighteen years old. Kingsley 
makes the most of this episode, and introduces into his 
story the romantic adventures attributed to Hereward 
in Northumberland, Ireland, and Cornwall, and then in 
Flanders. But Macfarlane, in the only passage where 
he could have introduced it, namely, in the account of 
Hereward put into the mouth of Father Adhelm (see 
pp. 68-70), not only ignores it but makes Hereward fight 
by the side of Harold in Wales, at Stamfordbridge, and 
at Hastings. There is no historical evidence for this, 
but on the other hand the silence of all the Chronicles 
as to the names of the English heroes at Hastings 
would allow us to think that Hereward might have 
been there, if only we can get over one or two points 
in the more or less legendary history. And this I 
think can be done. The event, or alleged event, which 
it is clearly necessary to meet, is the outlawry of Here¬ 
ward for his unruly conduct when he was a youth of 
eighteen. We have only legend for it, except for the 
very curious reference to his flight in the first of the 


INTRODUCTION 


xv 


two entries above quoted from Domesday. Now this 
reference, ‘ die qua aufugiit,’ must in the absence of 
evidence to the contrary, as Mr. Round points out, be 
referred to Hereward’s escape from the isle of Ely 
when, in 1071, in the words of Florence, f cum paucis 
evasit.’ This too, adds Mr. Round, would at once 
explain the Domesday entry as to Asford, 'for he 
would of course have forfeited his holding before that 
date’ (Feudal England, p. 162). This explanation not 
only accounts for the single historical reference to 
Hereward having been at any time a fugitive, but, in 
fixing the date to be after his exploits at Ely, disposes 
of any probability in the legendary theory that he was 
a fugitive before the battle of Hastings. 

Now here, then, we have a position which distinctly 
gives a clue to the probable course of events. They 
may be summed up as follows :— 

1. That Hereward was a young man, being by 

tradition only eighteen, when his career 
began to interest his countrymen. 

2. That he was in England after 1062. 

3. That suddenly, without preliminary note, his 

name appears in English history as success¬ 
fully withstanding William's conquest of 
England. 

4. That popular tradition has, in order to supply 

him with heroic [adventures, banished him to 
other lands before he took part in the defence 
of Ely. 

If the three first of these propositions may be 
accepted, the fourth is the only one that needs 



correction in order to fit it in with the historical 
evidence. What, then, was the foundation for it? 
Before going to Ely Hereward must have had experi¬ 
ence and knowledge of war, otherwise he would not 
have been chosen leader when Morcar and other more 
illustrious men were there. This much is perfectly 
certain, for men like Morcar do not readily give up 
the position of leader, and this much therefore of the 
popular tradition maybe accepted. Now Macfarlane’s 
suggestion in the story is that he won this experience 
and knowledge at Stamfordbridge and Hastings. This 
seems at least a possible solution, for it is remarkable 
that all the historical facts fit in with it, at least so far 
as Hastings is concerned. This is a very interesting 
point, and I will show how it is arrived at. There is 
first the important fact that of the English shires which 
sent men to fight at Hastings, Lincolnshire is one (see 
the list of shires in Wace’s Chronicle and Mr. Freeman’s 
note in Hist. Norm. Conq. iii. 425) ; while of the few 
English names preserved from that fight, one is no less 
a person than Leofric the Abbot of Peterborough, who 
came back to his home sick and wounded, ‘and w r 3es 
daed sone thaeraefter’ (Chron. Peterborough, 1066 ). 

But Hereward was, according to the authority of 
Hugh Candidus (for the first time pointed out by Mr. 
Round, Feudal England, p. 161 ), a ‘man’ of the Abbot 
of Peterborough, that is to say, a tenant bound to per¬ 
form military service for his lord. That Hereward, 
of all the abbot’s tenants, should have followed his 
lord to Hastings is more than likely—the strange thing 
would be that he should not have done so ; that, going 


INTRODUCTION 


XVII 


thither nameless among the many, he should gain ex¬ 
perience under the genius of Harold, though no fame 
has come to him through the historians from a field 
where Saxon fame was buried; that his own genius 
should make him use his experience when need arose ; 
that among the English all survivors from that fatal 
field who were still unwilling to bow the knee to 
William would be reckoned as heroes; that on this 
account alone he would be given rank above Morcar, 
who had weakly, if not traitorously, kept away;—are 
conclusions not drawn from the recorded facts of 
history, only because history has recorded no facts 
about any one who fought at Hastings. That they are 
not out of harmony with the few records of the 
nameless Hereward, who in 1070 was to plant his 
name for ever high among the heroes of English tradi¬ 
tion, seems to me to warrant much for their accept¬ 
ance as the probable truth. 

It seems, then, that although the historical Hereward 
is not so well known as most of us would like, the 
history that is known fixes upon him as a Lincoln¬ 
shire land-holder, who was in England within four 
years of Hastings and a fugitive at the time of the 
compilation of Domesday; who by the terms of his 
holding ought to have followed his lord to Hastings, 
when that lord—one of the few English heroes who 
are known by name, Leofric, Abbot of Peterborough 
—rode forth to take his part, and only came back 
to die; who by right of his own individuality was 
chosen leader of the fenland patriots, and who de¬ 
fended the last shelter of English freedom against 


XV111 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 

the might of William. f His heart failed him not 
when the hearts of the noblest of the land quaked 
within them. Our most patriotic Latin annalist adorns 
his name with the standing epithet with which he 
adorns the name of Harold, vir strenuissimus, and our 
native chronicler records his deeds in w r ords which 
seem borowed from the earlier record of the deeds of 
iElfred ’ (Freeman, Hist. Norm. Conq. iv. 455). I 
always think there is one undoubted fact on record 
which illumines the defence of Ely and makes it 
assume more of a national than a local character— 
makes it certain that Here ward was a leader whom 
all Englishmen had learned to trust. This event is 
the effort of a small band of the men of Berkshire, 
tenants of the Abbey of Abingdon, to join the new 
champions of England. Their line of march lay 
right across the country, and they were surprised 
by a body of Normans, surrounded, and either 
killed or captured (Freeman, Hist. Norm. Conq. iv. 
467). And let it be noted in connection with what 
has already been suggested about Hereward’s fame 
having been gained at Hastings, that Godric, the 
Sheriff of Berkshire, was one of the few heroes of 
Hastings whom we know by name, and that for a man 
to have been a thegn of Berkshire seems at that time 
to have implied almost as a matter of course that he 
had died at Hastings (ibid. 33). For the sons and 
companions of such men as these to flock to Hereward 
is an indirect testimony, of no little weight, to the 
other indirect testimony of Hereward’s fame as a hero 
of that fight. 


INTRODUCTION 


xix 


Intervening, however, between our own times and 
the actual Hereward as made known by history and by 
such conclusions as history allows us to draw, there is 
a mass of legend and tradition which, after the nature 
of legend and tradition, has accumulated itself round 
the name and deeds of the hero. So far as this legend 
and tradition deals with the period when Hereward 
was at Ely, it is difficult to separate it from real 
history; but so far as it deals with his earlier life, 
before the defence of Ely, it may be considered apart 
from the few facts which we have already seen are 
due to historical evidence. 

This consideration is all the more necessary because 
Kingsley’s superior genius as a romance writer has re¬ 
stamped these early adventures upon the minds of the 
people, and is apt therefore to influence judgment as 
to the merit of Macfarlane’s work. At a later stage 
the literary merits of the two books will be touched 
upon; all that I am anxious to make clear now are the 
historical merits of Macfarlane’s story. If we cannot 
positively affirm that Hereward was at Hastings, there 
is nothing in history to oppose the theory, and there 
is much to support it. The only opposition to it 
comes not from history but from tradition. 

Of the element of popular tradition there can be no 
doubt. Mr. Round gives the sanction of his great 
authority to the importance of the false historian of 
Crowland Abbey (Ingulph) incidentally stating that 
the daring deeds of Hereward ‘adhuc in triviis canun- 
tur,’ as an allusion ‘ to a ballad history surviving, it 
may be, so late as the days when the forgery was 


XX 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 

compiled’ ( Feudal England, p. 166 ). The Gesta and 
Gaimar’s Estorie are evidences of the existence of 
popular accounts of the hero which have been taken 
up into historical or would-be historical chronicles, 
namely, Ingulph and the Historia Eliensis. 

The Libei' Eliensis (cap. 102-107) gives only Here- 
ward’s doings in the isle of Ely, and says nothing of 
his other adventures, of his wife, of his death, nor 
of his doings after his firing of the siege works of 
William. There is a good deal of the language in 
the Liber Eliensis (cc. 104-106) common also to the 
Gesta, especially in chapter 106 . 

In Geffrei Gaimar’s L’ Estorie des Engles (vv. 5457- 
5710) there is nothing before the uprising in the fens. 
It describes him as a ‘ noble man, one of the best of 
the country ’ ; it tells of the fortifying of the isle, of 
Here ward’s firing of William’s bridge, of his plunder¬ 
ing of Peterborough. It seems further to imply that 
he married Alftruda, no mention being made of 
Turfrida; and it gives at considerable length (5615- 
5700) an account of his murder by certain Norman 
knights. It mentions (5609) that he had taken part 
in an expedition of King William into Maine. 

Mr. Searle has devoted a separate volume of the 
Cambridge Antiquarian Society’s publications to a 
study of Ingulf and the Historia Croylandensis, and his 
summaries are very valuable. Ingulf begins with Here- 
ward’s pedigree (of which more hereafter), his youth, 
and his exile about 1062 ; his journey to Northumbria, 
Cornwall, and Ireland, and his exploits in Flanders; 
tells of his marriage with Turfrida, her becoming a 











































































ANGLO-SAXON MINSTRELS 


(Cottonian MSS.) 











INTRODUCTION 


xxi 


nun, the attack upon Peterborough, capture of Toroid ; 
and concludes the story of his life that he ended it 
in peace and was buried at Croyland by the side of his 
wife, nothing being said of a second wife, or of Alftruda. 

This leaves us with the principal legendary account, 
the Gesta Herewardi Saxonis, contained in a Latin ms. 
of the twelfth century, printed by Mr. T. Wright in a 
volume of the publications of the Caxton Society 
published in 1850. Mr. Wright has also published a 
sort of free translation of this ms. in the second volume 
of his Essays on the Middle Ages, from which the 
following account is chiefly abridged. The second 
chapter commences a retrospective account of Here- 
ward, the first chapter having related his landing at 
Bourne in 1068. This account makes Hereward the 
son of Leofric, Earl of Chester and Mercia, and of 
his wife iEdiva, the famous Lady Godiva of the 
Coventry legend. As he grew up, his adventurous 
disposition gave rise to continual feuds and tumults, 
which drew upon him the enmity of his family. He 
collected some of his father’s rents to distribute among 
his wild followers, and his kinsmen were often obliged 
to rescue him from some imminent danger. His father 
at last obtained from King Edward an order of banish¬ 
ment, and he was driven from home with only one 
attendant, Martin with the Light Foot (cum solo servo, 
Martino, cui cognomen erat Levipes). From this time 
he was known as Hereward the Exile (Herewardus 
Exul). The third chapter relates that he first 
journeyed to the borders of Scotland, where he was 
received into the household of his godfather, Gisebritus 


XXII 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 

de Gant. Gisebert kept a number of wild beasts of 
various kinds, which at the festivities of Easter, Whit¬ 
suntide, and Christmas he let out, to try the strength 
and courage of the youths who were candidates for the 
honour of knighthood (qui militare cingulum expec- 
tabant et arma). Among the rest, he had a large 
Norwegian bear which escaped, slew every person it 
met, and spread terror through the castle. Hereward 
rushed forth to meet it, and after a desperate struggle 
succeeded in destroying it. By this action he secured 
the favour of the ladies (et mulieres ac puellae de eo 
in choris canebant), but the envy of his companions. 
After having escaped a plot laid against his life, he 
left the castle, and proceeded to the extreme part of 
Cornwall, which was then governed by an independent 
British chief named Alef, who had a beautiful daughter, 
who appears by the sequel to have bestowed her 
affections upon an Irish prince. Her father, more 
from fear than inclination, had promised her hand to 
Ulcus Ferreus, one of her countrymen, a popular man 
among the Cornishmen for his strength and valour. 
Hereward soon became an object of hatred to him, 
which broke out in a quarrel resulting in a victory for 
Hereward. The Cornishmen, enraged at the loss of 
their champion, called for vengeance, and Alef, under 
pretence of throwing him into prison, shielded him. 
He escaped with the lady’s aid to the Irish prince, 
and to the king his father. 

Soon after Hereward’s arrival in Ireland, he was 
joined by two of his kinsmen, named Siward the White 
and Siward the Red (Siwardo albo et Siwardo rufo), 






ANGLO-SAXON MINSTRELS AND GLEEMEN 


(Cottonian MSS.) 








































INTRODUCTION 


XXlll 


who brought him intelligence of his father’s death, and 
urged him to return home. But he remained to assist 
the king, at whose court he was living, in a war against 
another Irish king. Meanwhile the Cornish princess 
was betrothed to another suitor, and she sent a 
messenger to the Irish prince, to beg his assistance 
in averting it. He, with Hereward, was engaged in a 
descent on the coast of Cornwall, and immediately sent 
forty of his soldiers as messengers to claim the lady’s 
hand in fulfilment of a former promise of her father. 
Hereward, doubting the result, disguised himself, and 
with three of his companions arrived on the day of the 
nuptial feast, and learned that the Irish messengers had 
been thrown into prison, and that the intended bride¬ 
groom was to carry home his wife on the following day. 
He entered the hall with his companions, and they 
seated themselves at the lowest end of the table. The 
princess, thinking she recognised Hereward, ordered 
him to be served. Hereward affected rudeness, which 
excited her suspicions. It was the custom at this time 
in Cornwall that, after dinner on the day before she 
left her father’s house, the lady in her bridal robes 
should assist her maidens in serving round the cup to 
the guests, while a harper went before and played to 
each as the cup was offered to him. (Sponsa namque 
post prandium regalibus ornata indumentis, sicut mos 
provinciae est, cum puellis potum convivis et conservis 
patris et matris in extrema die a paternadomo discedens 
ministratura processit, quodam praecedente cum cithara 
et unicuique citharizante cum poculo.) Hereward, in 
fulfilment of a vow, refused to accept anything except 


XXIV 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


at the hands of the princess herself, who, finding out 
this, took some wine to him herself, and, being sure 
that it was Hereward, threw a ring to him, and excused 
his rudeness because he was unacquainted with their 
customs. The minstrel, however, remained dissatisfied 
when Hereward seized the harp from his hands and 
played with skill. He was requested to proceed, and 
again played, not only accompanied by his own voice, 
but his companions joined at intervals, ‘ after the 
manner of the Saxons.’ The princess, to aid him, sent 
him a rich cloak, the common reward of successful 
minstrels, and her husband, unwilling to be behindhand 
in his liberality, offered him any gift he would ask, 
except his wife and his lands. Hereward demanded 
the release of the Irish messengers who had been 
imprisoned. The prince was at first inclined to grant 
his request, when one of his followers exclaimed, ‘ This 
is one of their base messengers, who is come to spy thy 
house, and to mock thee by carrying from thee thy 
enemies in return for his frivolous performances.’ 
The Cornish chiefs suspicions were easily aroused, but 
Hereward, with the aid of the princess, escaped with 
his companions. When they had left the house, they 
followed the road along which the Cornish chief and 
his bride would pass, and concealed themselves on the 
banks of a river which formed the boundary of his 
dominions. 

The prince, determining to deprive each of the Irish 
messengers of their right eye, took them into his 
own territory. When he came to the river, Hereward 
and his companions rushed out, slew the prince, re- 



ANGLO-SAXON DRINKING AND MINSTRELSY 

(Harleian MSS. No. 603) 












INTRODUCTION 


XXV 


leased the Irishmen, carried away the princess, 
and met the Irish prince, who was on his way to 
avenge the insult offered him in the person of his 
messengers. Hereward accompanied the Irish prince 
and his bride to Ireland, and prepared to return 
with his friends to England. A tempest arose, one of 
his two ships was lost, and the storm carried the 
second to the coast of Flanders, and wrecked them in 
the neighbourhood of S. Bertin, where they were first 
arrested as spies, but received with hospitality when his 
name was known, and the Count of Flanders accepted 
his assistance in the wars in which he was engaged. 
Hereward’s bravery gained him the affections of Tur- 
frida, whom he married. News then arrived that the 
Normans had conquered Britain; and, leaving his wife to 
the care of the two Siwards, he repaired to England. 

In the year 1069, Hereward returned to his native 
land, bringing with him the two Siwards, and other 
Saxons who had joined him, and his wife Turfrida. 
Finding that his estates had remained unoccupied by 
the Normans, he proceeded direct to Bourne, where 
some of his bravest kinsmen were waiting for him. He 
then made a signal by setting fire to three cottages on 
the highest part of the Brunneswold, where he was soon 
joined by a gallant band of Saxon outlaws. Amongst 
those who joined him there were : Leofric the Mower 
(Lewinus Moue, id est falca), so called because, being 
once attacked by twenty armed men whilst he was 
mowing alone in the field, with nothing but his 
scythe to defend himself, he had defeated them all, 
killing several and wounding many; Leofric, named 

c 


XXVI 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 

Pratt (Lefwinus Pratt id est astutus) or the Cunning, 
because, though often taken by his enemies, he had 
always found means of escape, often having slain the 
keepers ; Wulric the Black (W1 uncus Niger), so named, 
because on one occasion he had blackened his face 
with charcoal, and, thus disguised, had penetrated 
unobserved among his enemies, and killed ten of them 
with his spear before he made his retreat; Wulric 
Hragra, or the Heron (Wluricus Rahen, vel Ardea), 
who, passing the bridge of Wrexham when four 
brothers, unjustly condemned to be hanged, were led 
by that road to the place of execution, had ventured to 
expostulate with their guards, but the latter called him 
in mockery a heron , and he rushed upon them, slew 
several, drove away the rest, and delivered their 
prisoners. At this time the monks of Ely, with their 
abbot Thurstan, fortified themselves in their almost 
inaccessible island among the wild fens. As soon as 
they heard of Hereward’s arrival, they sent to urge him 
to join his strength with theirs, which he determined 
to do. 

This is the point in the legendary account where 
Macfarlane’s story may be said to commence, in con¬ 
trast to Kingsley’s story, which, as may readily be 
seen, absorbs the whole of these traditions. Looked 
at closely, these adventures are sufficiently parallel to 
the events of current mythic legend and of the 
chivalrous romance of the age to be accounted for as 
the product of post-Herewardian times. The hero 
of the people must be clothed with the traditions of 
the people according to the well-known process of 


a 





A NORMAN CAROUSAL 


(Bayeux Tapestry) 












































































































INTRODUCTION 


XXVll 


attachment of existing traditions to a popular hero. 
For instance, there is the curious legend of Hereward 
pretending to be dead, and so being carried into a 
castle and slaying the inhabitants — a story well 
known, as Mr. Freeman reminds us, to comparative 
mythologists {Hist. Norm. Conq. iv. 828)—and there are 
his fight with the bear and his fight with the giant, 
two more episodes of mythic rather than historic 
events. But if these adventures can be safely put 
aside as the work of popular tradition according to 
laws of human thought quite well understood by all 
students of folklore, there is not much of moment 
left, except, indeed, the geography of his supposed 
travels—a geography which belongs to the very home 
of tradition, the unknown territories of the Celts, 
Ireland, Cornwall, and Scotland, and the equally un¬ 
known foreign countries. And let me point out that 
there is ground for attributing to people of the fen dis¬ 
trict a considerable fund of traditional lore ready to be 
adapted to personages who strongly influenced them. 
Thus there are the legend of the Pedlar of SwafFham, 
and the story of Tom Hick-a-thrift. The former is a 
world-wide myth, and the latter, which has been 
examined by me in a special edition, is closely con¬ 
nected with primitive tradition; and yet both are 
attached to the locality of the fens. There are other 
stories of the peasantry equally interesting from this 
point of view, and, perhaps, belonging to the Here¬ 
ward cycle, as, for instance, the f Legend of Byard’s 
Leaps’ {Arch. Assoc, xxxv. 283). The point need not, 
however, be laboured. All I am anxious to establish 


xxviii THE CAMP OF REFUGE 

is, that in giving Here ward an early romantic career, 
popular tradition would easily fit him with its own 
adventures. 

Before dismissing this part of the subject, however, 
there is also the work of the pedigree-makers to look 
into. Hereward’s holding f was situated at Witham 
on the Hill with its hamlets of Manthorpe and Toft 
with Lound not far from Bourne, and at Barholme 
with Stow a few miles off, all in the extreme south¬ 
west of the country/ Mr. Round, starting from 
this, goes on to examine (Feudal England, p. l6l) a 
passage from Hugh Candidus showing how Baldwin 
Wake possessed the holdings of Hugh de Euremou 
(the man who, according to Ingulph, married Here¬ 
ward’s daughter) and of Ansford. Here then, says 
Mr. Round, 'we see how this legendary name and 
legendary position of Here ward were evolved. The 
Wakes, Lords of Bourne, held among their lands, some 
not far from Bourne, which had once been held by 
Hereward. Thus arose the story that Hereward had 
been Lord of Bourne; and it was but a step further 
to connect him doubly with the Wakes, by giving him 
a daughter and heir married to Hugh de Euremou, 
whose lands had been similarly passed to the Lords 
of Bourne. The pedigree-makers’ crowning stroke 
was to make Hereward himself a Wake’ (p. l6l). 

This name of Wake, so generally given to Hereward 
by modern writers, is first mentioned by John of Peter¬ 
borough, a writer of uncertain date and personality. 
Under date 1069 occurs the passage, 'Obiit Brando 
Abbas Burgi, patruus dicti Herewardi le Wake, cui 


INTRODUCTION 


XXIX 


ex Regis collatione successit Turoldus/ and again, 
under 107U h e is called f Herewardus le Wake.’ 

But the legendary account, as we have seen (ante, 
p. xxi.), also makes him a son of Leofric, Earl of Mercia, 
and of the famous countess the Lady Godiva—in other 
words, a brother of Alfgar and uncle of Edwin and 
Morcar. Mr. Kingsley defends this pedigree, in the 
introductory chapter of his story, on historical grounds. 
Sir Henry Ellis also lent his authority to this parentage 
( Introd. to Domesday , ii. 146). But it comes only from 
a genealogical roll of the fifteenth century, and Mr. 
Freeman has sufficiently exposed the worthlessness 
of this testimony (Hist. Norm. Conq. iv. 830). In the 
meantime, there is to note that Hereward being ‘ a 
man ’ of Leofric, Abbot of Peterborough, is perhaps 
a sufficient datum from which to start the idea that 
he was son of a Leofric, and then, at the last stage, 
that he was son of the Leofric. 

I will now deal with the events from the commenc¬ 
ing point of Macfarlane’s story. It opens in the spring 
of 1070, when the rising began by the English folk 
joining the Danish fleet and attempting thereby to 
throw off the Norman yoke. The prospect of being 
ousted from his Peterborough lands by a follower of 
the new French abbot would, as Mr. Round says, 
have added a personal zest to Hereward’s patriotic 
zeal; but whatever the personal interest, the zeal was 
undoubtedly there, and it broke out at the time when 
the Norman monk Turold or Thorold was marching at 
the head of an armed body of Frenchmen to take 
possession of his monastery. 


XXX 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 

This event is told by an unimpeachable authority, 
the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle; and as it is one of the few 
undoubted historical facts recorded of Hereward, I 
shall quote this passage in full : 

‘ Then, in the same year (1070) came Svein, king of 
Denmark, into the Humber, and the country people 
came to meet him, and made peace with him, weening 
that he would overrun the land. Then came to Ely 
Christian, the Danish bishop, and Asbiorn jarl, and 
the Danish “huscarls” with them; and the English 
folk from all the fenlands came to them, weening that 
they would win all the land. Then the monks of Peter¬ 
borough heard say that their own men would plunder 
the monastery, that was Hereward and his company. 
That was because they had heard say that the king 
had given the abbacy to a French abbot named Turold, 
and that he was a very stern man, and was then come 
to Stamford with all his Frenchmen. There was then 
a church-ward there named Yware, who took by might 
all that he could; that was, gospels, mass-mantles, 
cantor-copes, and robes, and such little things, what¬ 
ever he could; and went forthwith, ere day, to the 
Abbot Turold, and told him that he sought his protec¬ 
tion, and informed him how the outlaws were to come 
to Peterborough, and that he did all by the advice of 
the monks. Then soon on the morrow all the outlaws 
came with many ships and would enter the monastery, 
and the monks withstood so that they could not come 
in. They then set it on fire and burned all the 
monks’ houses and all the town save one house. 
They then came in through fire, in at Bolhithe gate, 


INTRODUCTION 


XXXI 


and the monks came to meet them, praying for peace. 
But they recked of nothing, went into the monastery, 
clomb up to the holy rood, then took the crown from 
our Lord’s head, all of beaten gold ; then took the 
“ foot-spur ” that was underneath his foot, which was 
all of red gold. They clomb up to the steeple, 
brought down the crosier that was there hidden; it 
was of gold and of silver. They took there two 
golden shrines, and nine of silver, and they took 
fifteen great roods, both of gold and silver. They 
took there so much gold and silver, and so many 
treasures in money, and in raiment, and in books, as 
no man may tell to another, saying that they did it 
from affection to the monastery. They then betook 
themselves to the ships, proceeded to Ely, and there 
deposited all the treasures. The Danish men weened 
that they should overcome the Frenchmen; they then 
dispersed all the monks, none remaining there save 
one monk named Leofwine Lange. He lay sick in 
the sick man’s ward. Then came Abbot Turold and 
eight times twenty Frenchmen with him, and all fully 
armed. When he came thither, he found within and 
without all burnt, save only the church. The outlaws 
were then all afloat, knowing that he would come 
thither. This was done on the day the ivth of the 
Nones of June (June 2nd). The two kings, William 
and Svein, became reconciled, when the Danish men 
went out from Ely with all the aforesaid treasure, 
and conveyed it with them. When they came in the 
middle of the sea, a great storm came and scattered 
all the ships in which the treasures were: some went 


XXX11 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 

to Norway, some to Ireland, some to Denmark; and 
all that thither came were the crosier and some 
shrines, and some roods, and many of the other 
treasures; and they brought them to a king’s town 
called . . and placed them all in the church. 
Then afterwards, through their heedlessness, and 
through their drunkenness, on one night the church 
was burnt, and all that was therein. Thus was the 
monastery of Peterborough burnt and plundered. 
May Almighty God have compassion on it through 
His great mercy. And thus the Abbot Turold came 
to Peterborough, and the monks then came again, 
and did Christ’s service in the church, which had a 
full sennight before stood without any kind of rite. 
When Bishop iEgelric that say, he excommunicated 
all the men who had done the evil.’ 

Mr. Freeman seems to think of this event as telling 
against Hereward’s character (Hist. Norm. Conq. iv. 
46l) ; but remembering that the English hero was a 
f man’ of the Abbot of Peterborough, it is not difficult 
to see that he might have deemed himself loyal to the 
English abbot by opposing his French successor. Mr. 
Round takes this view. f Details recorded by Hugh 
Candidus, which the Petei'borough Chronicle omits,’ he 
says, f place Hereward’s conduct in a somewhat 
different light, and suggest that he may really have 
been loyal to the abbey whose man he was. His 
plea for bringing the Danes to Peterborough was that 
he honestly believed that they would overthrow the 
Normans, and that the treasures of the Church would 
therefore be safer in their hands. He may perfectly 


INTRODUCTION 


XXXlll 


well have been hostile to the Normans and yet faith¬ 
ful to the abbey so long as Brand held it; but the 
news that Turold and his knights were coming to 
make the abbey a centre of Norman rule against him 
(William of Malmesbury in loco ) would drive him 
to extreme courses’ (.Feudal England, p. 163). 

After these opening events things are not so clear. 
The best summary from all the chronicle sources is 
given by Sir William Dugdale in his History of Imbank- 
ing (PP* 185-91), and I shall use this narrative in the 
following pages, checking it where necessary by later 
research. One important point is worth mentioning 
here, to show a great distinction which exists between 
the legendary accounts of Here ward before and after 
the Ely events begin. I have already alluded to the 
fact that the legendary events before Ely are placed 
in a district which is the home of legend and romance. 
This is in contrast to the events after Ely, when, if 
we must mistrust some of the stories—and that is 
matter of no absolute certainty—we cannot mistrust 
the geography, for it is all true to the fenland. This 
seems to give a warrant of truth to the Ely events. 

Understanding that Hereward, Lord of Bourne, in 
Lincolnshire, was returned from beyond sea, those 
who had fled into the isle forthwith sent for him, 
desiring that he would repair thither with all his 
power, and join with them in the defence of their 
native country, and redeeming their just liberties: 
and in particular they importuned in behalf of 
Thurstane, then abbot of that place, and his monks, 
whose the said island wholly was, and on whose behalf 


xxxiv THE CAMP OF REFUGE 

the same was then fortified against the king, that he 
would make no delay, because the said king brought 
in a foreign monk out of France, to obtrude upon 
them as abbot there; and that he proposed to do the 
like in all churches throughout England. ( Ingulpki 
Hist., p. 511 n. 20; Ex vet. membr. penes Georgium 
Puresey , de Wadley, in com. Berks, arm. anno. 1653 ; 
Ex Re gist, de Peterborough penes Will. Pierpoint arm. 
f. 234 a.) 

To which request of theirs he willingly con¬ 
descended, and forthwith began his journey towards 
them accordingly: whereof the Earl Warren having 
notice, whose brother, long before, the said Hereward 
had killed, he laid ambushes for him on the outside 
of the fens belonging to this isle, and kept guards 
about the waters near to the land, hoping to take him 
cunningly without any slaughter of his own men ; but 
Hereward being aware thereof, as also that some of 
those guards had encountered with part of his soldiers, 
and pursued them, he came unto their aid, and by 
taking some of them, discovering that the said earl 
had set these ambushes for him, and likewise that he 
was on the morrow to be at Pokerhed, he hastened 
thither with his ship, and placing some armed soldiers 
near the bank of the river, he went himself with 
three horsemen and four archers, well armed, unto the 
mouth thereof; where the earl himself with his men 
was then also come on the other side; and seeing 
them, sent some of his party nearer; who inquiring 
whether they belonged to Hereward, and finding that 
they did, endeavoured to persuade them to forsake 







S. GUTHLAC S CROSS 


















































INTRODUCTION 


XXXV 


him ; but prevailing not, they returned to the earl, 
and told him, that Hereward himself was on the other 
side of the water. Whereupon the said earl animated 
his soldiers to swim over with him presently, and 
revenge his brothers death. But they told him, that 
it was not possible so to do, saying, that his coming 
thither was purposely thus to delude them: where¬ 
upon the earl, sighing, said to them on the other side 
of the water, ‘ O that I had that devilish fellow (your 
master) here ! I would certainly torment him to 
death/ To which words of his Hereward replied, ‘ If 
we should happen to be so fortunate as to meet alone 
in any fit place, you would not wish me in your feeble 
hands, nor like w r ell of my company’; and having so 
said, stooping a little, he bent his bow, and letting fly 
an arrow, hit the earl on his breast, but his coat of 
mail would not suffer it to enter ; nevertheless, it came 
with such a force, that it struck him off his horse, so 
that his servants took him for dead in their arms. In 
the meanwhile Hereward went away, and came with 
his company into the isle the same day, when he was 
received with great honour by the abbot and his 
monks ; as also by these noble persons that were there, 
viz. Morkere, Earl of Warwick, and other eminent 
men of the country, who, having been much oppressed 
by the said Conqueror, fled thither. 

Whereof the king hearing, and being much enraged 
thereat, he resolved to get the isle by assault; and to 
that end caused a rendezvous of his whole army at 
Alrehede (near which place there is a military rampire 
yet to be seen), where the fen was four furlongs in 


xxxvi THE CAMP OF REFUGE 

breadth ; and having brought store of wood, stone, and 
faggots of all kinds, with a multitude of trees and great 
pieces of timber, fastened them together underneath 
with cow hides; and to the end that they might the 
better pass over them, they stript off the skins of 
beasts, and filled them with mud like bladders, which 
being done, there were so many that pressed on to get 
over, being greedy of the gold and silver, whereof they 
supposed store to be in the isle, that they that went 
foremost were drowned, with their bridge, and those 
in the midst became swallowed up in the depth of the 
fen ; but of those that were hindmost, a few, throwing 
away their weapons, made a shift by the mud to escape. 
Nevertheless multitudes perished in this adventure, 
whose bodies were long after found, putrified in har¬ 
ness, and dragged out from the bottom of the water ; 
but one only man (whose name was Beda) getting into 
the isle. 

The king therefore, beholding this lamentable 
disaster, and much grieving thereat, departed thence 
with those few which he had left, without any hope 
to conquer it, placing guards of soldiers about it to 
prevent those within from wasting the country. In 
the meantime the said Beda, being taken, and brought 
before the chief persons that were in the isle, and 
asked why he so boldly adventured himself, he told 
them, that the king did promise, that whosoever 
should first enter, and do some notable exploit there 
to the danger of those that defended it, let him ask 
what he would of any man’s therein, and he should 
obtain it; which when they heard, they commended 



SITE OF HEREWARD S CASTLE 



































































INTRODUCTION 


xxxvii 


his valour, and kept him there with them for certain 
days, using him with great respect. Having therefore 
had this experience of their civilities, and observing 
how secure the place was by reason of the fortifications 
there made, as also the number and valour of the 
soldiers therein, he professed, that as he had often 
heard them reputed to be persons more expert in 
war than others, he now found it to be true, and 
faithfully promised them, upon liberty to go back to 
the king’s camp, that he would there relate as much ; 
which he accordingly did, all being joyful to see him 
safe returned, even the king himself, for he was one 
of his most eminent soldiers, unto whom he related the 
strength of the isle, and his own adventure, and that 
those earls before mentioned were there, with two 
noblemen, viz. Orgar and Thirchitell, surnamed Child e ; 
but extolled Hereward not only beyond them all, com¬ 
paring him with the most famous knights which he 
had seen through France, the whole Roman Empire, 
or Constantinople. 

At which story the Earl of Warren took no small 
offence, not enduring to hear such a commendation of 
him that had slain his brother (as hath been observed) ; 
and suggested to the king, that the relator was bribed 
to make so partial a report. But the king, going on 
in making more inquiry of his particular observations 
there, had this further account from him, that the 
monks of this place, fearing to be subject to a foreigner, 
in regard the king had designed to bring over such out 
of France, to be chief in all monasteries and churches 
of England, did entertain those persons there for this 


xxxviii THE CAMP OF REFUGE 

defence, and thereupon fortified the said isle ; affirm¬ 
ing that they were much more willing to live by the 
labour of their hands than to be reduced to such a 
servitude, and that the same isle was not then at all 
burthened by those forces. f For (quoth he) they 
matter not the siege, the husbandman not neglecting 
his plow, nor the hunter his sports; neither doth the 
fowler cease from his employment ’ : concluding, that 
they were securely defended by their own soldiery. 
‘ Nay, 1 shall tell you more (saith he), both what I know 
and saw. This isle is extraordinary fruitful in all sorts 
of grass, there being no place in England that hath a 
more fertile turf ; and, moreover, it is compassed about 
with huge waters and fens, as it were with a strong 
wall, and aboundeth not only with domestic cattle, but 
with a multitude of wild beasts, viz. harts, dogs, goats, 
and hares, both in the woods and near the fens ; as also 
ermines, pole-cats, weasels, and the like vermin, which 
are taken with traps and other engines in the winter 
time. And of fish and fowl which there breed, what 
shall I say ? At the flood-gates upon the skirts of those 
waters, what a vast company of eels do they take in 
nets ! as also mighty pikes and pickerells, perch, roach, 
and sometimes greater and royal fishes. Of birds like¬ 
wise these be innumerable. So also of geese, bitterns, 
sea-fowl, water-crows, herons, and ducks, abundance, 
especially in the winter season, or when they moult 
their feathers, whereof I have seen three hundred 
taken at one time ’ {Ex Hist. Eccl. Elien. in Bibl. Bodl. 
f. 30 a). 

Adding, that every day whilst he stayed with them. 


INTRODUCTION 


XXXIX 


the fashion of their sitting at dinner and supper in 
the common hall was a knight and a monk; and at 
the upper table the abbot himself, with the said earls ; 
as also Hereward and Turkill before specified. Like¬ 
wise, that above the head of each knight and monk 
hung a target and lance upon the wall; and in the 
midst of the room, upon forms, lay coats of mail and 
helmets, with other arms; that, when any occasion 
should be, the monks always, as well as the soldiers, 
might be ready to go to fight, whom he found to be 
most expert men at their weapons. And, moreover, 
magnified their plenty of all things there, that he said 
he thought it much better and more safe for the king 
to come to peaceable terms with them than to adven¬ 
ture to assail them by force, and miscarry in the 
attempt (Ex Regist. de Peterborough, ut supra). 

Which speech of his being thus ended, there stept 
out one of those soldiers that the king had employed 
to keep the fort made at Reche, in order to the siege 
of this isle, who being but newly returned from thence, 
having heard this relation of the before-mentioned 
Beda, said : c Do you think this to be a vain report, and 
not to be believed ? I assure you, that yesterday I 
myself saw a party of the enemy make a sally out of 
the isle, whereof but seven of them were armed; and all 
monks except two, who behaved themselves in every 
point like soldiers, and fired the town of Burwell, doing 
much mischief otherwise : which, when our men saw, 
ten of them issued out of the fort, with a purpose to 
take them in their return, because they were fewer in 
number; but in the skirmish, they slew all our men. 


xl 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


except one, a stout soldier, whose name was Richard, 
and nephew to Osbert the shireeve, with whom one 
Wenothus had a single encounter; wherein neither 
prevailing, though they fought a good w r hile, some of 
our men went to part them; whereof the famous 
Here ward taking notice (for he was within view), he 
would not suffer any one to meddle, saying, that it was 
not just that two or three should set upon one man, 
and that he would not suffer any of his to do so base a 
thing. But our men followed them to their ships, and 
killed one of their mariners with a dart; and taking 
another prisoner, he told us who they all were, and 
their names; viz. Hereward the General, Wenothus, 
Thurstane (a young man, afterwards surnamed Provost), 
Boter of S. Edmonds Bury, Siward, Leuric, and Acer, 
for his stoutness surnamed Hardy. These, notwith¬ 
standing they were monks, being skilful men in arms, 
often gave testimony of their valour in preference of 
the said Hereward.’ 

All which the king hearing, as he would not speak 
an evil word of them, deeming it a most unworthy thing 
to give bad language of such valiant men, so did he 
forbear to commend their courage above his own 
soldiers; but considered to make peace with them, in 
regard the isle was so strongly fortified, and that he 
knew not how to prevent their coming out thereof, or 
return. Whereupon calling together his nobles and 
counsellors, he told them his thoughts; alleging, that 
now he was to march against the army of the Danes, 
and soon after of necessity to go into Normandy, it 
would not be safe to leave such an enemy behind him 


INTRODUCTION xli 

in the midst of the land, at his back. But some of his 
nobles, then present, and who were most of his Privy 
Council, dissuaded him from so doing; urging, that if 
he dealt thus favourably with those that had embroiled 
his kingdom for so long a time, others would not be 
afraid to do the like (ibid. 188). 

To whom the king in anger replied, that he was not 
able to conquer them, considering the place naturally 
so defensible. Whereupon, one Ivotael le Bois, moved 
with some indignation, told him, that he had long 
known a certain old witch, who, if she were there, 
would by her art soon destroy their whole strength 
and places of defence; and drive them out as cowards 
from the island : which was no sooner said, but that all 
who stood by became earnest suitors to the king, 
that he would make no delay to encourage and well 
reward whomsoever that could by any art or skill 
vanquish his enemies. The king, therefore, yielding 
to these their persuasions, caused this old woman to be 
privately sent for, that it might not be talked of; and 
brought his army together again, placing it on all 
parts of the isle, making fortifications on every side 
thereof, and appointing strict guards, to prevent the 
issuing forth of any that were within, lest they should 
know what was in hand, and use any means to hinder 
the same. 

All which being done, and understood by those that 
were within, it put them to no little disturbance of 
mind, and likewise fear; they not knowing what to 
do, because the king had learned some new way of 
warring against them. They therefore consulting what 

d 


xlii THE CAMP OF REFUGE 

was best to be done, concluded to send out some fit 
person to make a discovery what it was that their 
enemies were in hand, but finding no man fit for such 
a task, the valiant Here ward resolved to undergo it 
himself, either as a scout or traveller, or to alter his 
habit, though all were against it; and at length did 
set forwards, taking with him only his mare called 
Swallow, which was always very lean and ill-shapen, 
but of pace exceedingly swift, and nimble for action. 

And when he went out, he changed his clothes, cut 
his hair and beard; and being so clad, met with a 
potter, whose pots he took from him, and feigning 
himself a potter, took his way to the king’s court, then 
at Brandon in Suffolk. And being got thither, it 
happened that he lodged at the house of a widow, 
where that old witch was entertained, who was to be 
brought privily, for the destruction of all those in the 
isle ; where he heard them discourse in Latin what art 
was to be used for the subduing thereof, they deem¬ 
ing him to be a plain country fellow, and ignorant of 
what they then discoursed. And, about the dead 
time of the night, discerning the woman of the house 
and that old sorceress to go out of doors, he secretly 
followed them, and saw that they went to a certain 
spring, which was by the side of a garden, and ran 
towards the east; and hearing them discourse, he 
understood that they designed to murtlier him ; but, 
to prevent their purpose, he got away very early in the 
morning with his pots ; and wandering about the king’s 
court on every side, he cried (as potters use to do), 
' Pots, pots, good pots and pitchers ; all good earthen- 


INTRODUCTION 


xliii 


ware/ Whereupon being called into the king’s 
kitchen, that they might buy some of his pots, there 
came in one of the constables of the town, and looking 
upon him, said, that he never saw any man in favour 
of face and stature so like Here ward, as a poor man 
might be like to a rich, and a country man to a 
soldier; insomuch as divers came about him, desiring 
to see a man like so much famed a person. But some 
when they saw him said, that a man of no greater 
limbs could not be of that valour and courage as 
Hereward was said to be. Others asked him, if he 
knew, or had ever seen, that wicked follow, scilicet 
c Hereward.’ To whom he answered, f I wish that he 
were now here amongst us, he being the greatest enemy 
that I have, for he took a cow and four sheep from me 
which were all the goods in the world that I had, 
except my pots and this mare, and the only livelihood 
for myself and my two sons.’ 

About this time, the king’s dinner being making 
ready, Hereward retired into the kitchen; and, after 
dinner, the servants, cooks, and grooms of the kitchen 
gave him wine and beer, that they might make him 
drunk, and laugh at him, scoffing at him diversly, 
having a purpose to shave his crown, and pull off the 
hair of his beard ; and then to hoodwink him, to the 
intent that he might break his own pots, which they 
had set about him. But refusing to be thus abused, 
one of them struck him, whom he requited pre¬ 
sently with a blow that knocked him down; insomuch 
as the rest took up tongs and other things to beat 
him; which he discerning, forthwith snatched up a fire- 



xliv THE CAMP OF REFUGE 

shovel, and laying about him stoutly, killed one, and 
wounded divers of them. Whereupon, it being made 
known in the house, they apprehended him, and put 
him in ward : and soon after, the king being gone out 
to hunt, one of the keepers came, and brought a naked 
sword in one hand, and a pair of fetters in the other, 
which he threatened to put upon him; but Hereward, 
being too nimble for him, wrested the sword out of 
his hold and slew him; and so, over hedges and 
ditches hasted to the king’s outer court, where he 
found his mare ; and though some pursued him, got 
safe away to Somersham Wood, where he hid himself 
till the moon shone after midnight, and then came 
into the isle. 

But whilst he was thus in the wood, he chanced to 
meet with a person whose horse was tired, and himself 
too ; and demanding of him who he was, he told him 
that he was one of the king’s servants, who had 
pursued a man who had killed one of the kitchen boys 
and another that had the custody of him after he was 
apprehended for that fact; and desired him, that for 
the love of God, and generosity’s sake, he would 
discover to him, whether he saw such a fellow or not, 
whom he then described. To whom he replied, 
' Because thou requirest me to tell thee, for the love 
of God, and of generosity, I will. Know, therefore, 
that I am the man. And now, that thou mayest be 
infallibly assured that I am so, and that thou hast 
spoken with me, take this my sword with thee for a 
testimony, and leave thy lance with me.’ All which 
he reported to the king, who, with those that were 


INTRODUCTION xlv 

then present, admired Hereward for an excellent 
soldier (p. 189). 

The king, therefore, according to his former pur¬ 
pose, having prepared divers warlike instruments, 
brought his whole army to Aelreheth (now Audrey), 
causing great store of wood and stone, with divers 
sorts of fagots, and suchlike materials to be carried 
thither. And summoned all the fishermen in these 
parts, with their boats, to meet at Cotingelade, that 
they might transport thither whatsoever was brought, 
and raise large hills and heaps on this side Aelreheth, 
whereupon to fight. Amongst which fishermen came 
Hereward himself also with a boat, using all show of 
diligence; and the same day, before sun-setting, 
having set fire on what was so brought, and killed and 
drowned divers, he made his escape away. And to the 
end he might not be known, he coloured his head and 
beard red, neglecting no way to disguise himself, 
which might further the doing of mischief to his 
adversaries. Whereof the king hearing, commanded, 
that if ever he could be taken, he should be brought 
alive to him without any hurt. 

But, having warning by these losses, the king caused 
more strict guards and watches day and night in every 
place; and within seven days raised four or five 
mounts of earth and other materials, in which they 
placed certain warlike engines; intending, on the 
morrow, with all their force, to assault the isle; and, 
that they might the better succeed therein, set that 
old witch, before mentioned, upon the highest place, 
in the very midst of them; that, being so well 


N 


xlvi THE CAMP OF REFUGE 

guarded, she might exercise her wicked art. Who, 
being so set up, made long speeches against the isle, 
and all those that were in it, making signs and shows 
of their being vanquished; and always at the end of 
each spell, she turned up her bare buttocks towards 
the isle. Howbeit as she was beginning with her 
third spell, there were those in the isle that set fire on 
the reeds growing in the fen all thereabouts, which, 
by the help of wind, spread itself no less than two 
furlongs; and making a horrible noise of crackling 
amongst the willows, and suchlike vegetables, did so 
affright the assailants, that they hastened away as 
fast as they could; but, being troubled with the 
smoke, could not tell which way to betake themselves, 
insomuch as many were drowned, the defendants 
having the advantage of the wind and smoak getting 
out of the isle, and showering multitudes of arrows 
upon them. 

And in this prodigious rout and confusion of the 
assailants, down tumbled the old witch from the 
place w r here she was set, and broke her neck; nay, 
the king himself hardly escaped death, there being 
an arrow shot into his target, which he carried away 
with him to his tent: which so soon as his soldiers saw, 
they feared he had been wounded; but he told them 
that he was not at all hurt, otherwise than by evil 
counsel, in being deceived and abused through the 
cunning of that wicked sorceress, expressing that 
all the mischief which had happened did befall him 
deservedly, in putting any trust in her devilish art. 

At that time it was that Raphe, surnamed Waer 























































INTRODUCTION 


xlvii 


(Earl of the East Angles), having privately got together 
a great strength, inviting divers of the English to his 
wedding, obliged them to his party deceitfully, by 
oath; and wasted the whole country from Norwich 
to Thetford; whereof the two earls, and all the rest 
of the chief persons who then were in this isle, having 
notice, repaired to them, leaving only Here ward, with 
the monks and his own soldiers, to defend this place. 

Things standing therefore thus, the king discern¬ 
ing that all his endeavours were fruitless, as to the 
conquering this isle by war or power, having lost so 
many men in his attempt to that purpose: he at 
length, by the counsel of William, then Bishop of 
Hereford, and others, determined that all the goods 
and possessions belonging to that abbey, which lay 
without the compass of the isle, should be seized on 
and divided amongst his soldiers (Ex Hist. Elien. Eccl. 
in Bibl. Cotton, sub effigie Titi , A. If. 87 a.), to the end 
that they might keep guard on the outsides thereof. 
Of which the monks having knowledge, they forth¬ 
with consulted together, their abbot being returned 
(who, dissembling to go with those earls, fled with 
the ornaments and treasure of the church to Anger- 
hale), and resolved not only to yield peaceably to the 
king, in case he would restore unto them peaceably and 
honourably all the lands belonging to their church, 
but to give him a thousand marks. And accordingly 
sent cunningly, without the knowledge of the noble 
Here ward, to make that tender to him, the king being 
then at Warwick, who acceptably entertaining it, they 
gave admission to him and his soldiers, to come 


xlviii THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


privately into the isle, when Here ward was gone out 
with his men to forage, to the end that the business 
might be done without resistance (Ex Regist. de Peterb., 
ut supra) : which being discovered to Here ward, by one 
of the said monks (whose name was Alwyne, the son 
of Orgar), he grew so enraged that he resolved to set 
fire to the church and the town; but, at the earnest 
entreaty and prayer of that monk, wishing him rather 
to have regard to his own safety, as also telling him 
that the king with all his army was then at Wyccheford 
(within the distance of one furlong), and desiring him 
that he would secure himself by flight, in case he had 
no mind to make his peace; he yielded to those, his 
persuasions, because he had often accompanied him in 
his military adventures, and been faithful to him; and 
thereupon presently betook himself to those his ships 
which he had to guard the isle into a large and spacious 
meer, called Wide, not far from Welle (this being 
the seventh year of their so holding of the same isle 
against the king) ; and sailed thither, in regard there 
were free passages out of it. And there resolving to 
stay a while, employed some of his soldiers towards 
Soham, to plunder and pillage the country; to whom 
he sent out scouts to bring them back to him, lest 
they should be taken. Which scouts, finding them in 
a little island, called Stuntney, thought them to be 
their enemies; and therefore two of them (viz. 
Scarfulte and Broher) got amongst the reeds; and 
with their swords each shaved the other’s crown, 
expecting thereby to find the more favour being 
taken; but at length discovering that they were all of 







































* 













































































HEREWARD S MOUND AT ELY. SUPPOSED TO BE THE SITE OF THE LAST STAND 



INTRODUCTION 


xlix 


a side they went away together, and soon got to their 
master, who had not been long in the said meer, but 
that the country people and king’s soldiers so beset 
them, that being forced to flee, he killed his own 
horse, lest any mean fellow should boast that he had 
taken him. And so getting away into Bruneswald 
and the great woods of Northamptonshire, he very 
much wasted the country thereabouts. 

Leaving Sir William Dugdale’s narrative at this 
point, the last act of Hereward in connection with 
the Camp of Refuge is too important not to quote in 
the words of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. It shows him 
unconquered to the last. Whatever legend may do in 
suggesting that he made his peace with the Conqueror, 
history leaves him the unconquerable hero. ‘And 
thus all the outlaws went and surrendered to the 
king; these were Bishop iEgelwine and Earl Morkere 
and all who were with them, except Hereward only, 
and all who could flee away with him. And he boldly 
led them out, and the king took their ships and 
weapons and many treasures’ (a.d. 1071). Except 
Hereward only ! ‘ Buton Herewerde anum,’ as the 
Saxon tongue has it. These are words which may 
well stand side by side with those more pitiful words 
attached to Harold, f Hic Haroklus rex interfectus 
est,’ to be remembered to an English hero’s glory. 

We are now, I think, sufficiently acquainted with 
the history and the legends of Hereward to judge of 
the use to which they have been put by the romance 
writer. It may seem a long preface to the considera¬ 
tion of Macfarlane’s story, but I think it will help to 


1 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 
make that story clearer. The dramatis persons are as 
follows:— 

Historical— 

Hereward. 

Alftrude (Hereward’s wife). 

Ivo Taille-Bois (Norman Count of Spalding). 
Thurstan (Abbot of Ely). 

Lucia (a Saxon lady, wife of Ivo Taille-Bois). 

Raoul (Norman Lord of Brunn). 

Toroid (Norman Abbot of Peterborough). 

Knut (Prince of Denmark). 

William the Conqueror. 

Odo (Bishop of Bayeux). 

Robert (Earl of Moreton). 

Imaginative— 

Elfric (a novice of Spalding, afterwards Here¬ 
ward’s sword-bearer). 

Father Adhelm (the sub-prior of Crowland Abbey). 
Father Cedric (a monk of Crowland). 

Mildred (hand-maiden to the Lady Alftrude). 
Girolamo of Salerno (an Italian, friend of Here¬ 
ward). 

Geoffroy Taille-Bois (brother of Ivo Taille-Bois). 
Prior and other monies of Ely. 

It is difficult to make out from history who among 
the English were really with Hereward at Ely at 
this time. Mr. Freeman decides against Archbishop 
Stigand and Abbot Frithric being there, for good and 
sufficient grounds. But there is no doubt that Earl 


INTRODUCTION 


li 


Morcar, Bishop Ethelwine, Siward Barn, and Abbot 
Thurstan were all there. Edwin, Morcar’s ill-fated 
brother, was of course not there, for he had been done 
to death on his way to Scotland by his own followers; 
but that there were other chiefs of the patriot party 
there can be little doubt, unnamed though they must 
ever be. 

It will be well to compare with the legendary and 
historical stories of Hereward which have been con¬ 
sidered above, the events which make up Macfarlane’s 
romance. And the existence of Kingsley’s fine story 
supplies the opportunity for a comparative study of 
the manner in which this episode of English history 
has been treated by different authors. The following 
is a synopsis of the events as they appear in the two 
stories:— 


KINGSLEY. 

MACFAKLANE. 

1. Outlawry of Hereward by 


Edward the Confessor. 

— 

2. Journey beyond Northumber- 


land to Gilbert of Ghent. 

— 

3. Hereward kills the bear. 

— 

4. Fight with three knights who 


attack him. 

— 

5. Journey to Cornwall. 

— 

6. Rescue of princess from a 


giant lover. 

— 

7. Journey to Waterford. 

— 

8. Rescue of the Cornish princess 


for the second time. 

— 

9. Wrecked on the coast of 


Flanders. 

— 

10. Wars in Flanders and else- 


where. 

— 







lii 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


KINGSLEY. 


MACFARLANE. 


11. The capture of a famous 

horse. 

12. Marriage with Torfrida. 

13. News of Hastings, arrival of 

fugitives. 

14. Landing at Bourne and slay¬ 

ing of Normans there. 

15. Sack of Peterborough. 

16. The fight at Aldreth. 

17. Hereward’s visit in disguise 

to William’s camp. 

18. The burning of the witch. 

19. Treason of the Ely monks. 

20. Hereward kills his famous 

mare. 

21. Escape from the fens into 

Bruneswald. 

22. Capture of Abbot Thorold. 

23. Torfrida enters Crowland 

Monastery. 

24. Fight with Sir Letwold. 

25. Marriage with Alftruda. 

26. Hereward comes in to the 

king. 

27- Slaying of Hereward by 
several knights. 


Landing at Bourne and turning 
out the Normans without blood¬ 
shed. 

Sack of Peterborough. . 

The fight at Aldreth. 

The burning of the witch. 
Treason of the Ely monks. 


Capture of Abbot Thorold. 


Marriage with Alftruda. 
Hereward comes in to King 
William. 


28 . 


Hereward dies in peace. 


The events which are common to both stories do 
not follow each other in the same order in each story. 
Hereward’s marriage with Alftruda occurs early in 
Macfarlane’s story, and is his only marriage; it occurs 
late in Kingsley’s story, and is his second and un¬ 
wise marriage. The capture of Thorold occurs late 
in Kingsley’s story and early in Macfarlane’s story. 
But this question of the sequence of events aside, it 











[from dugdale’s History of Imbanking] 
















INTRODUCTION 


liii 


will be seen that Macfarlane’s story is less crowded 
with detail than Kingsley’s. 

These being the events of this memorable episode 
of English history, the next point to consider is the 
part of the country where they occurred. The land 
of the fens is not now what it was, but fortunately 
there is preserved to us a very good account of the 
operations which changed fens into fertile fields, wide 
lakes into rivers and water courses—fenland, in fact, 
into modern Cambridgeshire, Huntingdonshire, and 
Lincolnshire. To Dugdale’s History of Imbanking the 
historian owes a great debt, for it is possible with its 
help to get back to the condition of things which 
preceded the great drainage schemes of the seven¬ 
teenth century. By comparing the three maps of 
Celtic, Roman, and Saxon Britain, which Mr. Pearson 
gives in his Historical Maps of England, it will be seen 
how the great fen district, w r hich stretched from the 
Wash more than sixty miles southward, and from 
twenty to forty eastward, isolated the Anglian pro¬ 
vinces from the Mercian; while we know that the 
rivers which traversed these fens had such depths of 
water as to facilitate attack from the sea. The Danes 
sailed up the Witham as far as Lincoln, and up the 
Ouse as far as Ely; and ship’s ribs and timbers have 
been found in the Witham, deep sunk in the bed of 
the river (Pearson, op. cit. p. 3). 

Before the diversion of the waters of the Ouse 
from what is now called the Old Ouse, or Old West 
River, to the magnificent artificial cuts known as 
the Bedford Rivers, the access to the islands of the 


liv 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


fen must have been always difficult, and often nearly 
impossible. 

This naturally inaccessible country was made 
accessible by the arts of man. British roads and 
Roman roads traversed the entire area, and they are 
not obliterated even by the different requirements of 
modern times. The Soham causeway crossed Soham 
mere to Ely, and thence from east to west to St. Ives ; 
south of this and almost parallel was Haddenham 
causeway from Stretham in the east to St. Ives in the 
west. Crossing these two causeways at right angles, 
and running therefore from south to north, was Aldreth 
causeway from Cambridge to Witcham, which served as 
a way from the drier lands near Cambridge to the 
islands in the fen. Another great causeway ran 
irregularly from St. Ives to Cold Harbour, then bifur¬ 
cated in one direction to Peterborough across Whittle¬ 
sey mere, and in the other direction northwards to 
Ingleborough. Besides these, the work of the fen- 
people themselves, there was the work of their 
conquerors the Romans. Akeman Street ran from 
Cambridge through Thetford and Ely straight up to 
Lynn ; the great fen-road crossed from west to east 
from Durobrivae south-west of Peterborough to Swaff- 
ham and the coast of Norfolk at Happisburgh. Near 
Eastrey this road stands from one to two feet above 
the present surface of the land, and is nearly 60 feet 
wide and as hard as stone (Babbington, Anc. Cam¬ 
bridgeshire, p. 69); and Dugdale, in describing this 
roadway in 1662, speaks of it as 60 feet wide f in all 
places where they have cut through it’ (Hist, of 



MAP OF THE DISTRICT, FROM THE ORDNANCE SURVEY 
























INTRODUCTION 


lv 


hnbanking, p. 175 ; Brown’s Post. Works , p. 4). Ely 
was connected with Spalding by a roadway which 
branched from Akeman Street at Littleport and went 
by the way of Wilney, probably along the line of the 
old causeway dyke to Up well and Elm, and from thence 
in a direct line to Spalding (Babbington, op. cit. 73). 

But Ely was at this time strictly an island, and it is 
so described by Macfarlane (see p. 35). It is a tract 
slightly raised above the level of the surrounding 
country, and on the highest point the present cathedral 
church of Ely now stands. The main approach was 
not by the Roman road, but by Aldreth causeway. It 
was at this point that the isle was most accessible; 
and here is the spot where William the conqueror of 
England had to contend with Hereward the defender 
of England. 

Kingsley has left us a picture of these fens which is 
difficult to pass over without drawing attention to, for 
there is nothing like it in Macfarlane’s story. ‘ They 
have a beauty of their own, these great fens,’ says this 
great romancist, and then he describes this beauty, with 
the enthusiasm of one who has realised it and drunk it 
into his being, in a singularly fine passage which occurs 
at the opening of his story of Hereward the Wake 
(see p. 11 of the 1883 edition). 

One further point must be borne in mind in deciding 
the true significance of Hereward’s defence of Ely, and 
that is the character of the people, other than the 
leaders, who fought with him—a subject not brought 
into prominence by the romance writer. The fen- 
landers were not what the rest of the English were, 


lvi 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


even if they were English at all. So recently as the 
beginning of the present century an agricultural 
surveyor reports of the fens that ‘ the labourers are 
much less industrious and respectable than in many 
counties. In the fens it is easily accounted for: they 
never see the inside of a church, or anv one on a 
Sunday but the alehouse society. Upon my asking my 
way, towards the evening, in the fens, I was directed 
with this observation from the man who informed 
me, “Are you not afraid to go past the bankers 
at work yonder, sir ? ” I was told these bankers were 
little better than savages ’ (Gooch, Agriculture of Cam¬ 
bridgeshire, p. 289). If we carry this evidence back 
to the period of Hereward’s defence we find there is 
good reason to believe that these people were as 
untamed by the civilisation that surrounded them as 
could well be. A passage from the early historian of 
Ramsey (c. 86) seems to point to the existence of 
British, that is pre-Saxon, robbers in the fenland at 
the time of Knut. The English tenants of an oppres¬ 
sive Danish thegn say, ‘ Quousque alienigenae istius 
vitam donandum gratis Britonibus latronibus continuis 
noctium excubiis ad nostrum dedecus et damnum 
conservamus.’ An unconquered people, fighting on 
their own ground with their own weapons and in 
their own familiar fashion, could, if situated as the 
fenlanders were situated, make a stout resistance 
when they were properly led. 

Arms and armour, and, above all things, boats, have 
been from time to time dug up in the fens as silent 
witnesses to the doings of these times; and in some 



KENNEPH S BOUNDARY—STONE IN WELLAND WASH 


























































































































thorney abbey church 






























































INTRODUCTION 


lvii 


places the skeletons of warriors, with the remains of 
their shields and arms, have been discovered. At Wil- 
braham a shield was discovered with the handle yet 
remaining grasped by the finger-bones of a human 
hand; while in another grave the skeletons of a man 
and a horse were found together with a sword placed 
between them {Gent. Mag. Lib. Archaeology, ii. 1?4). 
This latter is sure indication of Scandinavian influence, 
and the grim memorial of war represented by the 
skeleton hand brings to mind in a very dramatic 
fashion the struggle of the fens. In Wilburton fen not 
far from Haddenham (referred to in the story as the 
birthplace of Elfric the novice, p. 48), and about two 
miles from Aldreth, a great hoard of bronze implements, 
including spear-heads and swords, was found in 1882. 
It was examined and described by Sir John Evans 
(Archceologia , xlviii. 106-114), and this great autho¬ 
rity, considering the broken condition of the imple¬ 
ments, their varied nature, and other circumstances, 
could not give a very definite opinion as to the origin 
of their deposit at this spot. From the point of view 
of the archaeological age to which they belong, the 
difficulties stated by Sir John Evans are no doubt great, 
but I think there is another side to the question. The 
people of this district were not advanced in civilisation 
in Hereward’s time, and it is probable that they used the 
weapons of their far-off forefathers just as they came 
to hand. It is stated on good authority that some of 
Harold’s soldiers at H astings fought with stone weapons; 
and that the fen-people should have fought with bronze 
weapons seems to me not an unreasonable conjecture. 


e 


lviii THE CAMP OF REFUGE 

In 1635, according to Andrew Burrell in his Relation 
touching the Fens, 1642, several boats were discovered 
in the silt upon the deepening of the Wisbech river. 

In 1839 a canoe-boat was found in Deeping fen. 
This was hollowed out of a single tree, and was 40 feet 
long, 3 feet across, and its stern 5 feet 8 inches broad 
and 4 feet deep. A keel ran along the bottom (Walker 
and Craddock, History of Wisbech, p. 36). About 1851, a 
very fine canoe-boat was found at Haddenham in North 
fen (Cambridge Antiq. Soc. iv. 195). In 1881, at a point in 
the river Ouse about half-way between Denver Sluice and 
Lynn, just above the Great Horse-shoe Bend, commonly 
called ‘ Maudlin Bend/ a canoe-boat was found (ibid. 203). 
The boats described in the story as belonging to the in¬ 
vading Danes (p. 250) might be of the type found; and 
when compared with the famous boat found at Christi¬ 
ania a few years ago, this conclusion seems warranted. 

The monasteries of Peterborough, Ely, Crowland, 
and Spalding are referred to in the story, and it will 
be well to say a word about these and their remains 
as they appear at the present day. 

As far back as a.d. 655, Saxulf, a Mercian thane, 
founded a monastery on the spot where the cathe¬ 
dral church of Peterborough now stands. King Edgar 
richly endowed it, as did Earl Leofric and his famed 
Countess Godiva, and the Abbot Leofric, who died 
from wounds at Hastings. After its sack by the Danes 
and Hereward, its glory departed until the church was 
rebuilt during the Norman period. Its choir dates 
from 1118, the transepts from thirty or forty years 
later, and the nave from the end of the twelfth century. 



■2ft 4 tn 


SECTION OF CANOE FOUND NEAR LYNN 

(Cambridge Antiquarian Society, voL iv.) 
















CROWLAND ABBEY CHURCH 











































































INTRODUCTION 


lix 


At the latter part of the fifteenth century, the choir 
aisle was erected ( Arch. Assoc, xxxv. 323). It is now 
being destroyed by the so-called restorers. 

Ely is perhaps sufficiently described on pp. 37-39 of 
the story, for the present cathedral church does not 
contain any portion of the ancient Saxon foundation. 

Of Crowland there is more to be said. S. Guthlac’s 
house and chapel were on what is still called Anchorite 
or Anchor Church Hill, about a quarter of a mile north¬ 
east of the abbey, on the east side of the road to 
Spalding, and a few hundred yards south of S. James 
Bridge. He seems to have at first selected a mound, 
which had previously been dug into, most likely as a 
gravel-pit, and to have built partly over this pit. 
A ground-plan of the last portion of the foundations 
of what has been traditionally supposed to be the 
anchorite’s cell is given in the Archceological Associa¬ 
tion Journal (xxxv. 133). It was exhumed in 1866, 
in order to get out the foundation-stones on which 
it stood. The foundations then exposed consisted 
of two parallel walls, running east and west, about 
14 feet apart, and 84 feet in length. On either side, 
towards the western end, was a room, making the 
whole width of the western end 42 feet. These 
foundations consisted of concrete walls, nearly 3 feet 
thick, with at intervals substantial bases of unhewn 
stone, more than 8 feet square, three on each side, 
opposite to each other, about '12 feet apart, with an 
intermediate base (half the size of the other bases) 
between the two easternmost bases on the south 
side. Full two hundred tons of Barnack rag-stone were 


lx THE CAMP OF REFUGE 

carted away from these foundations at this time. As 
this operation was carried on by the new proprietor very 
privately, only a few relics, such as portions of deers’ 
horns, the metal lid of a small cup, came to light. 
Prior to this act of vandalism, the site was a cultivated 
mound. In the year 1708, Dr. Stukeley says he 'saw 
the remnant of a chapel there, which was then turned 
into a dwelling-house or cottage.’ He says, moreover, 
that the ruins of this stone cottage were pulled down 
about 1720, and the field was known as * Anchor Church 
Field.’ Here, there is little doubt, was the cell of 
S. Guthlac, and not on the site of the abbey, which 
was erected full three centuries after his death. 

Crowland is a dull, decayed village. Many of the 
cottages look as mouldy as if they had remained un¬ 
touched since the dissolution, when the glory of Crow- 
land departed. The wondrous triangular bridge still 
exists in the village street, though even a deluging 
rain now fails to make a stream run beneath its finely 
moulded and ancient arches, which for five hundred 
years have attested the skill of all its builders. The 
villagers will have the seated effigy on the bridge to 
be Cromwell, with a loaf of bread in his hand. 
It may have been that the figure was originally 
intended to represent iEthelwald, king of Mercia, one 
of the first benefactors of the abbey; others, again, 
think it to be the figure of a saint from a niche in the 
church. The story goes, that about the year 710 TEthel- 
wald was a fugitive, and sought refuge with his kins¬ 
man Guthlac, who prophesied his future greatness. In 
acknowledgment of the fulfilment of this prophecy, 



CASTLE MOUND AT CAMBRIDGE 

























































PRECINCT OF THE PRIORY OF SPALDING, FROM DUGDALe’s AlOUdSticOll 













3ASTLE MOUNI) AT CAMBRIDGE 







INTRODUCTION 


lxi 


iEthelwald built a church of stone as a memorial to 
S. Guthlac, and around this the monastic buildings 
gathered. They were destroyed by the Danes when 
they invaded the country in 806. Ninety years later 
Abbot Thurkytel began a new church., but it was not 
till the latter days of the Confessor that the present 
building was begun; and, indeed, it is possible that 
some of the older foundations, excavated a few years 
ago, were of this date {Arch. Assoc, xxxv. 319). 

Of Spalding there are practically no remains. In 
1789 the ruins of the priory consisted of some cottages 
with Gothic windows, and part of the church and gate¬ 
way, but these have since been almost demolished. 
Dugdale, in the original edition of his Monasticon, gives 
an engraved plan of the precinct of the priory as it 
stood in his time, and a reduced wood-block of this 
is given in the later edition (vol. iii. p. 214). 

Two other places sacred to Hereward’s history are 
the remains of the castle at Cambridge, from which 
William delivered his attack on Ely, and ‘ Hereward’s 
mound ’ at Ely, still pointed out as the spot where the 
hero made his last stand. 

Besides the character of Hereward and his followers 
and the events with which they were connected, the 
story deals w r ith the monastic life of the period. We 
have the picture of Ely brought very vividly before 
us, and it may be generally stated that Macfarlane’s 
details are very fairly correct. He is severe and 
sarcastic upon the attention the monks paid to feast¬ 
ing and wine-drinking, but apparently not without 
reason. The elaborate details of the refectory afford 


lxii THE CAMP OF REFUGE 

evidence of the importance attached to the supper of 
the monks. This room was a large hall. Within the 
door on the left hand was an almery where stood the 
grace cup out of which the monks after grace every 
day drank round the table; and another large one on 
the right with smaller within, where stood the mazers, 
of which each monk had his peculiar one. At the 
south end of the high table was an iron desk, on 
which lay a Bible from which one of the novices read 
a part in Latin during dinner. At the east end was 
a table for the master of the novices, the elects, and 
the novices to dine and sup at. Two windows opened 
into the refectory from the great kitchen, the one 
large for principal days, the other smaller for every 
day; and through these the meat was served. Over 
against the door in the cloister was a conduit or 
lavatory for the monks to wash their hands and faces. 
This description, quoted from Fosbrooke’s British 
Monacliism , is no doubt more particularly applicable 
to Norman times, but it is probable that the late 
Anglo-Saxon arrangements at a large abbey like Ely 
would not be very different. 

The costume of the monks is a matter of some 
interest, especially as Mr. R. A. S. Macalister has 
quite recently investigated the subject of ecclesiastical 
vestments, generally from the point of view of their 
historical origin in pagan civil costume. On p. 317 
a list of articles belonging to the monks is recited by 
the chamberlain, and these, as may be seen by refer¬ 
ence to the glossary, are probably taken from the 
authority of Fosbrooke. Fosbrooke figures a bishop 





ECCLESIASTICAL SCULPTURES SHOWING COSTUME 
IN SAXON TIMES 










































INTRODUCTION lxiii 

from a Saxon ms . about 1066 (British Monachism, 
p. 291 , plate i.), and two sculptures of about the same 
date from Peterborough (ibid, plate ii.). The dress 
of monks, says Mr. Macalister, usually consists of the 
vestis, tunic, or closed gown ; the scapular, roughly 
speaking, a narrow chasuble-like dress, with the front 
and back portions rectangular, and of uniform width 
throughout; one or more open gowns (pallium or 
cappa), and the caputium or hood fastened at the back 
and capable of being drawn over the head. Different 
vestments are worn by individual orders or houses 
(Ecclesiastical Vestments, p. 235). 

Minor details which are illustrated by Macfarlane’s 
story may be briefly referred to. The opening 
chapter describes the use of the curious fen-poles, 
f such as the fenners yet use in Holland, Lindsey, and 
Kesteven’ (p. 1), an illustration of which is given in 
Wheeler’s History of the Fens, p. 9L The men of 
Spalding are described as wearing * sheepskin jackets, 
and with bows and knives in their hands’ (p. 22). 
The game of bowls referred to on p. 49 is probably 
quite warranted by the history of the game, though 
there is no actual evidence of it being played in 
Anglo-Saxon times; but I should doubt there being 
a bowling-alley at Ely. The game of pitching the 
bar (p. 315) may also have been a Saxon game. The 
manor-house of stone and moated, f proper to stand a 
siege ’ (p. 3, et alii), is, I am afraid, not true to Anglo- 
Saxon times, and is particularly not true of the fen 
district, where very little stone was used. Macfarlane 
makes a point about Saxon architecture being of 


lxiv THE CAMP OF REFUGE 

stone,, and objects to the theory that the f churches 
and abbeys and monasteries were built almost entirely 
of wood’ (p. 39). It is true that controversy has 
ranged round this subject and that authorities differ, 
but I think on the whole it must be admitted that 
the evidence for a very extensive use of stone prior to 
the Norman Conquest is not forthcoming (see a 
discussion in Gentleman s Magazine, reprinted in the 
f Ecclesiology’ volume of the Gent. Mag. Lib., pp. 17-61), 
while it is certain that bricks were not used at all 
(see Gomme, Village Community, p. 46). The houses 
of the villagers, however, are very well described on 
p. 329 in the account of the raid upon Dereham. 

The house customs described on p. 179 are in 
accord with what is known of Anglo-Saxon life, but 
the bath mentioned on p. 181 is probably an ana¬ 
chronism. The Norman baptismal feast described in 
chapter vi. is probably correct, and the illustration, 
from an early ms., given in Wright’s Domestic Manners, 
p. 64, of a Norman carousal may be referred to. 

Affectionate regard is paid to Harold. He is 
believed to have escaped alive from Hastings (see 
p. 57), and to have been preparing to again head the 
English against the Norman Conqueror. This has, 
however, only the warrant of a ms. life of Harold of 
the thirteenth century, which has been reprinted by 
Mr. Walter de Gray Birch, and of a story related by 
Giraldus Cambrensis, that Harold survived the battle, 
became a monk in Chester, and before he died had a 
long and secret interview with Henry the First. No 
historian except Palgrave gives credit to this, but the 



ANGLO-SAXON HOUSE 


(Harleian MSS. No. 603 ) 




















































INTRODUCTION 


lxv 


uncertainty as to Harold’s burial would account for it 
having arisen. According to most of the English 
writers, the body of Harold was given by William to 
Githa, without ransom, and buried at Waltham. 
But William of Poitiers, who was the Duke’s own 
chaplain, expressly says that William refused Githa’s 
offer of its weight in gold for the supposed corpse of 
Harold, and ordered it to be buried on the beach, 
with the well-known taunt, ‘ Let him guard the coast 
which he madly occupied ’; and on the pretext that 
one whose cupidity and avarice had been the cause 
that so many men were slaughtered and lay un- 
sepultured, was not worthy himself of a tomb. Orderic 
confirms this account, and says the body was given to 
William Mallet for that purpose. 

It is also put in the story, as a matter of belief, 
that Hastings f was lost by foul treachery ’ (see p. 58), 
but of this there is absolutely no proof. 

Other more specific matters of history or archaeo¬ 
logy are dealt with in the glossary and notes. 

Of the literary merits of Macfarlane’s story there can 
be little question. It is written as the simple narrative 
of a chronicler, and touches one with the charm of 
ancient days. It indicates rather than describes the 
scenery; it relates rather than explains the events ; 
it records rather than extols the heroic; it tells part 
of the conversations that took place rather than puts 
into the mouths of men and women talk that might 
have taken place. It is obvious that these character¬ 
istics bring it into sharp contrast with Kingsley s 
story. Kingsley is more dramatic and lifelike ; Mac- 


lxvi THE CAMP OF REFUGE 

farlane is more penetrating. There is nothing in 
Macfarlane to equal Kingsley’s remarkably fine descrip¬ 
tions of Hereward’s relationship to Tostig Godwinsson ; 
of his reception of the news of Stamfordbridge, and his 
scornful surprise that Harold Sigurdsson should have 
been defeated and slain by Harold Godwinsson; of 
his reception of the news of Hastings and his indignant 
protest against England being lost in consequence— 

‘ Sussex is not England, nor Wessex either ’; of his pain¬ 
ful cry to have been there f to go with them to Valhalla’; 
of his touching reception of Githa, the widow of God¬ 
win and mother of Harold, in her flight from defeated 
England to Flanders. Again, there is nothing like the 
picture of the fierce Danish nature of Hereward, the 
same nature that brought out in Kingsley’s story the 
war-song of Surturbrand the blind Viking, f Hereward 
is come, Ahoi! he is wet with blood/ when he met 
Hereward when, landing at Bourne, he recaptured his 
own homestead. Indeed, in the treatment of this event 
by the two authors their difference of method is very 
plainly illustrated. The Hereward of Macfarlane is a 
more polished knight. And who shall say which is the 
truer portrait ? Let them both exist. There is room for 
both pictures, for both characters:—for the wild, blood¬ 
thirsty, generous, and wayward Hereward of Kingsley, 
who would not fight at Hastings, because he would not 
accept Harold as king, and yet cried out to know 
where Edwin ami Morcar fought at the battle, and 
scorned them as vain babies when he was told of their 
unmeaning action; who went over to fight for his 
country when there was little chance left of his success ; 





























V 























































































INTRODUCTION 


lxvii 


who played with the faithful heart of his wife, as his 
mood and passion taught him ; who came in to William 
at last, and died fighting and killing to the last: and 
there is room, too, for that other Hereward of Mac- 
farlane’s story, who earned his right to championship 
by fighting by the side of Harold at Hastings; who kept 
on the struggle because he would not give in so long 
as there was a chance; who lived the life of the times, 
and died the death of one who had earned his peace. 
There is room for both heroes and both stories, and 
history and literature claim them for the light they 
shed upon a glorious page of England’s history. 

The author of this book was bom in Scotland, 
and died as a f poor brother of Charterhouse’ in 1858. 
He was a voluminous writer, but his only thorough 
piece of work is the Civil and Military History of England , 
which he contributed to Knight’s Pictorial History , and 
which has been reprinted with additions once or twice 
since. 

The Camp of Refuge was published anonymously in 
two volumes, 12mo, in 1844. It then appeared with 
other stories in Old English Novelettes, four volumes, 
18mo, 1846-7. It was next reprinted by itself in 1880, 
and again in 1887. The present edition is a reprint of 
the 1846-7 edition. 


GLOSSARY AND NOTES 


Abbat, or Abbot (p. 41). 

Tlie head of an abbey, elected by the chapter. He was deposable 
for various causes by the ceremony of breaking his seal, as was done 
at his natural demise, by a hammer upon one of the steps before 
the altar, and depriving him of the stole and ring.—Fosbrooke’s 
Monachism, p. 85. 

Accolade (p. 193). 

Properly an embrace or clasping about the neck ; the technical name 
of the salutation marking the bestowal of knighthood, applied 
at different times to an embrace, a kiss, and a slap on the shoulders 
with the flat blade of a sword. 

Assoiled (p. 299). 

To absolve from sin, grant absolution to, pardon, forgive. 

Athelstan’s Song of Victory (p. 176). 

This is for the famous victory of Brunanburgh of which so much 
has been written. The best account of Athelstan and his deeds is 
to be found in William of Malmesbury’s Chronicle, lib. ii. cap. 6, 
who quotes a portion of the celebrated song. 

Banded (p. 293). 

Published, promulgated; but the use of the word in this sense is 
not noticed in Dr. Wright’s English Dialect Dictionary. It is from 
the Anglo-Saxon bannan. 

Bed and Bedding of the Monks (p. 317). 

This is described in detail by Fosbrooke in British Monachism, 
p. 227. The abbot’s bed was in the middle of the dormitory near 
the wall, and the novices had their beds on the south. Their bedding 
included blankets, curtains, pillows, and coverlids. 

Bell, Book, and Candle (p. 114). 

The form of excommunication in the Church of Rome, ending by 
closing the book against the offender, extinguishing the candle, and 
ringing the bell.—Halliwell, Diet. Arch. Words. 

lxviii 












lxix 


GLOSSARY AND NOTES 

Biberes (p. 17). 

Drinkings which were usual in summer after nones. 

Bobbing for Eels (p. 49). 

Bob is north-country dialect for ‘to fish.’ The particular method 
of taking eels called bobbing is described in Blome’s Gentleman's 
Recreation, 168G, ii. 185. See also Mr. Ernest Suffling’s Land of the 
Broads, p. 300. 

Borhman (p. 333). 

Borh is Anglo-Saxon for surety, pledge; but borhman here means 
the chief man of the town. 


Bot (p. 113). 

Compensation; an Anglo-Saxon word. 

Bowling-Alley (p. 49). 

Bowling-alleys were prevalent in later times, but in Anglo-Saxon 
days, if bowls were played, they were probably played in the open 
fields. In 1571 they were prohibited during church service. See 
Halliwell, Diet. Archaic Words. 

Burgh-gemot (p. 184). 

The meeting of the burghers of cities and boroughs in council. 
See Stubbs, Select Charters. 

Camise (p. 109). 

A light, loose dress of silk or linen; a chemise, shirt, tunic. 

Cantel-Copes (p. 222 ). 

A kind of cope or cape. 

Carricks (p. 335). 

A small fishing-boat is noted in Holinshed’s Description of Scotland, 
p. 22, as ‘carrocks.’ 

Catafalk (p. 343). 

From the French catafalque. A temporary structure representing 
a tomb, placed over the coffin of a distinguished person in churches 
or over the grave. Here used in a more general sense. 

Cautelous (p. 72). 

Crafty, artful, cautious; stated by Halliwell to be a very common 
word. 


lxx 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


Cellarer (p. 40). 

The officer of an abbey who had the care of everything relating 
to the food of the monks, and vessels of the cellar, kitchen, and 
refectory. He was allowed absence from masses, completory, and 
all the hours except matins, vespers, and prime. He was to weigh 
the bread daily, and in collecting the spoons after dinner he was to 
carry the abbot’s in his right hand, and the rest in his left (see 
p. 317).—Fosbrooke, British Monachism, p. 118. 

Chamberlain (p. 79). 

He was the officer to find everything necessary for the clothes, 
bedding, cleanliness, and shaving of the monks (see p. 317).—Fos¬ 
brooke, British Monachism , p. 141. 

Chapter (p. 64). 

The governing body of the monastery, held daily in most orders, 
but only once a week in others. No person was allowed to enter the 
cloister while the chapter was held, on account of the secrets of it, 
which were never to be revealed. The chapter-house had three rows 
of stone benches one above the other, a reading-desk and a bench, a 
place called the Judgment in the middle, a seat for the abbot, 
higher than the others, and a Crucifix.—Fosbrooke, British 
Monachism, p. 222. 

Churchyard Devils (p. 308). 

The churchyard demons were always a prominent part of popular 
superstitions. 

Churchyard Feasts (p. 297)* 

A very ancient and prevalent superstition was that were-wolves and 
wizards used to dig up the dead from their graves to feast upon. 

Combs (p. 317). 

The monks used various kinds made of box or ivory, but the use 
of combs was not general among the Anglo-Saxons. 

Compline (p. 19). 

The last service of the day, completing the services of the canonical 
hours. 

Cresset (p. 193). 

A vessel of iron or the like, made to hold grease or oil, or an iron 
basket to hold pitched rope, wood, or coal, to be burned for light; 
usually mounted on the top of a pole or building, or suspended from 
a roof. Frequent as a historical word; in actual use applied to a fire- 
basket for giving light on a wharf, etc. 





lxxi 


GLOSSARY AND NOTES 

Crosier (p. 361). 

The pastoral crook, which was sometimes barely curled, sometimes 
more ornamented, and sometimes like beadles’ staves.—Fosbrooke, 
British Monachism, p. 103. 

Cucullis (p. 108). 

The hood or cowl of a monk. 

Dalmatic (p. 361). 

An ecclesiastical vestment, with a slit on each side of the skirt, and 
wide sleeves, and marked with two stripes, worn in the Western 
Church by deacons and bishops on certain occasions. A similar robe 
worn by kings and emperors at coronation and other solemnities. 

Devils (p. 139). 

The names of the demons in popular superstition are many and 
very curious. Dr. Harsnet in 1605 published a little book, A 
Declaration of Egregious Popish Impostures, which contains many of 
these names, and Grimm’s Teutonic Mythology should be consulted 
as to their significances. 

Ely as a Camp of Refuge. 

Nigel, Bishop of Ely, and Alexander, Bishop of Lincoln, established 
a camp of refuge at Ely in the time of Stephen. Many partisans of 
the popular party fled thither in the time of John. After the battle 
of Evesham [temp. Henry hi.) Simon de Montford and the barons 
defended the isle against the king and Prince Edward. 

Evanish (p. 332). 

To vanish out of sight, disappear from view. 

Fautor (p. 105). 

Aider, supporter. 

Featy (p. 87). 

Neat, clever, dexterous, elegant. 

Foster-brother (p. 117). 

The institution of fosterage is general among all the Indo-European 
peoples. It was of exceptional importance in Ireland, but existed 
among the Anglo-Saxons as well. Sir Henry Maine’s Early History 
of Institutions , p. 241, should be consulted. It occurs in the laws of 
Ina and of Edmund. 

Frith (p. 22l). 

Peace; Anglo-Saxon. 


lxxii 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


Frith Splot (p. 311). 

A spot or plot of ground encircling some stone, tree, or well con¬ 
sidered sacred, and therefore affording sanctuary to criminals.— 
Thorpe, Ancient Laws and Institutes of England (glossary). 

Gorgets (p. 28). 

A defence for the neck. 

Gride (p. 386). 

To pierce, cut through, give out a harsh, creaking sound; from 
O.E. girden, to strike, A.-S. graedan, to cry. 


Grith (p. 221). 

Peace, truce, protection, asylum, guarantee of safety or immunity 
(Anglo-Saxon). 

Hauberks (p. 194). 

A part of mail-armour intended originally for the protection of the 
neck and shoulders, but as generally used a long coat of mail coming 
below the knees and even nearly to the ankles, slit up the sides, and 
sometimes in front and behind, to allow the wearer to mount a 
horse. 

Horrent (p. 372). 

Standing erect, as bristles; covered with bristling points; bristling, 
horrible, abhorring. 

‘ Him round 

A globe of fiery seraphim inclosed, 

With bright imblazonry and horrent arms.’ 

Milton, Paradise Lost , ii. 513. 


Hospitaller (p. 40). 


An occasional officer of an abbey. He was to observe the officers 
whether they had proper servants and regular chambers, and to 
make complaints of their ill-behaviour. He conducted visitors to 
their places at the various functions of the monastery.—Fosbrooke, 
British MonaGhism, p. 140. 


Huge, big. 


Hugeous (p. 83). 

‘ She made his hawke to fly 
With hogeous showte and crye.’ 

Skelton, Ware the Hawke. 


Incubus and Succubus (p. 139). 

Terms used in the Middle Ages to denote male and female devils 
with whom wizards and witches were thought to have intercourse. 
It was a horrible conception altogether, and is one of the black spots 
of that terrible belief in witchcraft which so generally prevailed. 



GLOSSARY AND NOTES 


1 * * • 
xxm 


Jarls. 

Our atlieling, ceorl, and slave are found in the oldest tradition of 
the north as jarl, carl, and thrall ; in later times, carl begat the 
bonder, and jarl the king.—J. R. Green, Conq. of Eng., p. 57. 

Mahound (p. 297). 

1. Mahomet or Mahommed: an old form of the name of the 
Arabian prophet. 

2. The devil; an evil spirit: so called as confused, or identified in 
the mediceval mind, which regarded all heretics and false prophets 
as instigated by the devil, with Mahomet, or Mahommed, the False 
Prophet. 

Manumitted Churls (p. 181). 

Slaves freed by their lords. For the custom of manumission, 
the student should consult Kemble’s Saxons in England, vol. i. 
Appendix C. 

Mats (p. 31G). 

Mats were used in the choir to put under the feet of the monks in 
the Vigil of All Saints; also under those of the boys and youths. 
They were also used in the chapter, cloister, in both the parlours, 
and upon the stairs of the dormitory. — Fosbrooke, British 
Monacliism, p. 130. 

Mead (p. 55). 

A fermented liquor made from honey and water flavoured with 
spices. 

Mitre (p. 3G1). 

Mitres appear to have been worn by abbots like those of bishops. 
—Fosbrooke, British Monachism, pp. 103, 285. 

Noggin (p. 316). 

A vessel of wood; also a mug, or similar vessel of any material. 
The contents of such a vessel; a small amount of liquor, as much as 
might suffice for one person. 

Nones (p. 323). 

About 2 or 3 p.m., one of the canonical hours. 

Oaths. 

See the remarks of Henry, Hist, of Britain, on this head. From 
the lavish abuse of oaths, perjury had come to be reckoned one of the 
national vices of the Saxon. 


lxxiv THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


Obedientiarii (p. GO). 

Offices under the abbot, often conferred by the abbot for favour 
or money.—Fosbrooke, British Monachism, p. 110. 

Octave. 

The eighth day from a festival, the feast-day itself being counted 
as the first. The octave necessarily falls on the same day of the 
week as the feast from which it is counted. 

Omens (p. 249). 

A hare crossing the path, sneezing, and a picture falling from the 
wall are all modern superstitions. It is not out of place to sub¬ 
stitute the falling of a shield for the latter, and to consider all these 
as omens of the eleventh-century Dane. 

Palmer (p. 60). 

Properly a pilgrim who had visited the Holy Land, from the palm 
or cross which he bore as a sign of such visitation ; but Chaucer 
seems to consider all pilgrims to foreign parts as palmers, and the 
distinction was never much attended to in this country.—Halliwell, 
Diet. 

Pasque (p. G6). 

The Jewish feast of the Passover, and hence the Christian feast of 
Easter. 

Passing Bell (p. 52). 

The bell which is tolled at the time a person is dying, i.c. at the 
time the soul is passing away. Brand’s Popular Antiquities , vol. i. 
p. 202, contains a sufficiently good account of this custom. 

Pigment (p. 55). 

This is meant for ‘piment,’ which was a drink made up from wine, 
honey, and spices.—Fosbrooke, British Monachism , p. 217, note. 

Prior (p. 40). 

The head of a priory, and in an abbey the officer next to the 
abbot. He had the first place in the choir, chapter, and refectory. 
He was censed after the abbot, could depose malversant officers, 
and could call at pleasure a chapter of the servants and punish 
delinquents.—Fosbrooke, Monachism, p. 112. 

Quinzane. 

The fourteenth day after a feast-day, or the fifteenth if the da} T of 
the feast is included. 





GLOSSARY AND NOTES 


lxxv 


Respectuously (p. 8). 

Deserving of respect; used in 1610 by Knolles in Hist, of Turks, 
and quoted by Halliwell, Diet. Archaic Words. 

Rochet (p. 216). 

A loose upper garment, which was adopted by the clergy in the 
Middle Ages, and is still worn.—Fairholt, Costume, ii. 350. 

Sacrist (p. 79). 

The secretary of the monastery, and an officer who had many and 
important duties.—Fosbrooke, British Monachism, p. 126. 

S. Ovin and his Cross (p. 4). 

This saint was said to descend from the ancient Britons, and 
had been minister to Etheldreda. See p. 38. The cross in Ely 
Cathedral dedicated to S. Ovin was removed from Haddenham in 
1770. For description of the cross, see Archceological Association 
Transactions, xxxv. pp. 388-396. 

Sedges (p. 337). 

The popular name of an extensive genus of grass-like plants, grow¬ 
ing mostly in marshes and swamps and on the banks of rivers, dis¬ 
tinguished from the grasses by having the stems destitute of joints. 
From Anglo-Saxon secy, a reed. 

Shire-Gemot (p. 184). 

The council or assembly of the shire or county. 

Shrieve (p. 229). 

An obsolete form of shrive. To prescribe penance for sin, im¬ 
pose penance on. To receive a confession from a penitent and grant 
absolution. 

Sortilege (p. 148). 

Divination by drawing lots; from Latin sortilcyus. 

Soulscot (p. 244). 

In old ecclesiastical law, a funeral payment, formerly made at the 
grave, usually to the parish priest in whose church service for the 
departed had been said. 


Spitting (p. 299). 

The practice of spitting to express dislike of a person, or to place 
spittle between oneself and an enemy, is a general superstition, and 
it is perfectly justifiable to use it as in the text. 


lxxvi 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 

Succursal Cell (p. 4). 

A subordinate branch of a monastery. 

Swinked (p. 185). 

Swinke, to labour (Anglo-Saxon). Brockett in his North-Country 
Glossary has swinked, meaning oppressed, vexed, fatigued. 

Tithingman (p. 147). 

The headman of a tithing, that is, the union of the free households 
for mutual security, and hence the part of a village or parish. 

Tonsure (p. 30). 

The tonsure signified the crown of thorns worn by our Saviour, 
and also denoted humility and the service of God, slaves being shorn. 
The Westerns used a small circle of short hair round the head called 
the tonsure of S. Peter.—Fosbrooke, British Monachism, p. 284. 
The bare place on the head of a priest or monk, formed by shaving 
or cutting the hair ... Of the ecclesiastical tonsure there were 
known to the Anglo-Saxons, in the early period of their Church, two 
distinctive shapes, the Roman and the Irish: the Roman form was 
perfectly round; the Irish was made by cutting away the hair from 
the upper part of the forehead in the figure of a lialf-moon, with the 
convex side before.—Rock, Church of our Fathers , p. 186. 

Troth Plight (p. 126). 

The passing of a solemn vow either of friendship or marriage. 

Unanealed (p. 368). 

Not having received extreme unction; from Anglo-Saxon an, not, 
and clan, to oil. 


To think ill of. 


Vilipend (p. 77). 


Wandering Jew(p. 309). 

This refers to a widespread legend of the Middle Ages, to which 
Mr. Moncure Conway has devoted a special volume. The legend goes 
that a Jew mocked at Jesus on His way to the Cross, and his 
doom was never to die and never to rest, but to wander from land 
to land until the Day of Judgment. Mr. Keary in Outlines of 
Primitive Belief draws attention to the parallel legend in northern 
mythology. 


GLOSSARY AND NOTES lxxvii 


Wassails (p. 58). 

From the Anglo-Saxon tvaes hael, be in health. It was anciently 
the pledge-word in drinking. The wassail-bowl appeared at Christ¬ 
mas in the country until quite recently. 

Wimple (p. 82). 

A covering of silk, linen, or other material laid in folds over the 
head and round the chin, the sides of the face, and the neck, formerly 
worn by women out of doors, and still retained as a conventual dress 
for nuns. Consult Fairliolt, Costume, ii. 413. 


January. 


Wolf Month (p. 178). 










































































THE CAMP 


OF REFUGE 








THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


CHAPTER I 

THE MESSENGER 

It was long ago ; it was in the year of grace one thou¬ 
sand and seventy, or four years after the battle of 
Hastings, which decided the right of power between 
the English and Norman nations, and left the old 
Saxon race exposed to the goadings of the sharp 
Norman lance, that a novice went on his way from the 
grand abbey of Crowland to the dependent house or 
succursal cell of Spalding, in the midst of the Lincoln¬ 
shire fens. The young man carried a long staif or 
pole in his hand, with which he aided himself in leaping 
across the numerous ditches and rivulets that inter¬ 
sected his path, and in trying the boggy ground before 
he ventured to set his feet upon it. The upper end of 
his staff was fashioned like unto the staff of a pilgrim, 
but the lower end was armed with a heavy iron ferrule, 
from which projected sundry long steel nails or spikes. 
It was a fen-pole, such, I wist, as our fenners yet use 
in Holland, Lindsey, and Kesteven. In a strong and 
bold hand this staff might be a good war-weapon ; and 
as the young man raised the skirts of his black garment 
it might have been seen that he had a short broad 
hunting-knife fastened to his girdle. He was a fair¬ 
haired, blue-eyed, and full-lipped youth, with an open 



2 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 

countenance and a ruddy complexion : the face seemed 
made to express none but joyous feelings, so that the 
grief and anxiety which now clouded it appeared to be 
quite out of place. Nor was that cloud always there, 
for whensoever the autumn sun shone out brightly, 
and some opening in the monotonous forest of willows 
and alders gave him a pleasant or a varied prospect, or 
when the bright king-fisher flitted across his path, or 
the wild duck rose from the fen and flew heaven-ward, 
or the heron raised itself on its long legs to look at 
him from the sludge, or the timid cygnet went sailing 
away in quest of the parent swan, his countenance 
lighted up like that of a happy thoughtless boy. 
Ever and anon too some inward emotion made him 
chuckle or laugh outright. Thus between sadness and 
gladness the novice went on his way—a rough and 
miry way proper to give a permanent fit of ill-humour 
to a less buoyant spirit, for he had quitted the road or 
causeway which traversed the fens and was pursuing a 
devious path, which was for the greater part miry in 
summer, but a complete morass at the present season of 
the year. Notwithstanding all his well-practised agility, 
and in spite of the good aid of his long staff, he more 
than once was soused head over ears in a broad water¬ 
course. With a good road within view, it may be 
thought that he had some strong motive for choosing 
this very bad one; and every time that his path 
approached to the road, or that the screen of alders 
and willows failed him, he crouched low under the tall 
reeds and bulrushes of the fen, and stole along very 
cautiously, peeping occasionally through the rushes 
towards the road, and turning his ear every time that 
the breeze produced a loud or unusual sound. As thus 
he went on, the day declined fast, and the slanting sun 
shone on the walls of a tall stone mansion, battle- 


THE MESSENGER 


3 


merited and moated—a dwelling-house, but a house 
proper to stand a siege : and in these years of trouble 
none could dwell at peace in any house if unprovided 
with the means of holding out against a blockade, and 
of repelling siege and assault. All round this manor- 
house, to a wide space, the trees had been cut down 
and the country drained; part of the water being 
carried off to a neighbouring mere, and part being 
collected and gathered, by means of various cuts, to 
fill the deep moat round the house. 

Here the young man, in fear of being discovered by 
those who occupied that warlike yet fair-looking dwell¬ 
ing, almost crawled on the ground. Nevertheless he 
quitted his track to get nearer to the house; and then, 
cowering among some reeds and bulrushes, he put his 
open hand above his eyebrows, and gazed sharply at 
the moat, the drawbridge, the low gateway with its 
round-headed arch, the battlements, and the black 
Norman flag that floated over them. The while he 
gazed, the blast of a trumpet sounded on the walls, 
and sounded again, and once again; and, after the 
third blast, a noise as of many horses treading the 
highroad or causeway was heard among the fen reeds. 
The novice muttered, and almost swore blasphemously 
(albeit by the rules of the order he was bound to use 
no strong terms than crede mihi , or plane , or eerie , or 
benedicamus Domino ) ; but he continued to gaze under 
his palm until the sounds on the road came nearer and 
trumpet replied to trumpet. Then, muttering ‘This 
is not a tarrying place for the feet of a true Saxon ! ’ 
he crawled back to the scarcely perceptible track he 
had left, and kept on, in a stooping posture but at a 
rapid pace, until he came to a thick clump of alders, 
the commencement of a wood which stretched, with 
scarcely any interruption, to the banks of the river 


4 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 

Welland. Here, screened from sight, he struck the 
warlike end of his staff against the trunk of a tree, and 
said aloud, f Forty Norman men-at-arms! by Saint 
Etheldreda and by the good eye-sight that Saint Lucia 
hath vouchsafed unto me ! Forty Norman cut-throats, 
and we in our succursal cell only five friars, two 
novices, two lay-brothers, and five hinds ! and our poor 
upper buildings all made of wood, old and ready to 
burn like tow ! and not ten bows in the place or five 
men knowing how to use them ! By Saint Ovin and 
his cross ! were our walls but as strong as those of the 
monks of Ely, and our war-gear better, and none of us 
cowards, I would say, “Up drawbridge! defy this 
Norman woodcutter, who felled trees in the forest for 
his bread until brought by the bastard to cut Saxon 
throats and fatten upon the lands of our thanes and 
our churches and monasteries !” I would spit at the 
beard of this Ivo Taille-Bois, and call upon Thurstan 
my Lord Abbat of Ely, and upon the true Saxon hearts 
in the Camp of Refuge, for succour! ’ And the pas¬ 
sionate young man struck the trunk of the poor un¬ 
offending tree until the bark cracked, and the long 
thin leaves, loosened by autumn, fell all about him. 

He then continued his journey through the low, thick, 
and monotonous wood, and after sundry more leaps, 
and not a few sousings in the water and slips in the 
mud, he reached the bank of the Welland at a point 
just opposite to the succursal cell of Spalding. A ferry¬ 
boat was moored under the walls of the house. He 
drew forth a blast-horn; but before putting it to his 
lips to summon the ferryman across, he bethought him 
that he could not be wetter than he was, that he had 
got his last fall in a muddy place, and that the readiest 
way to cleanse himself before coming into the pre¬ 
sence of his superior would be to swim across the river 


THE MESSENGER 


5 


instead of waiting to be ferried over. This also suited 
the impatient mood he was in, and he knew that the 
serf who managed the boat was always slow in his 
movements, and at times liable to sudden and un¬ 
seasonable fits of deafness. So, throwing his heavy 
staff before him, like a javelin, and with so much vigour 
that it reached and stuck deep into the opposite bank, 
he leaped into the river and swam across after it. 
Before he came to the Welland the sun had gone 
down; but it was a clear autumnal evening, and if he 
was not seen in the twilight by a lay-brother stationed 
on the top of the house to watch for his return and to 
keep a look-out along the river, it must have been 
because the said lay-brother was either drowsy and 
had gone to sleep, or was hungry and had gone down 
to see what was toward in the kitchen. 

The succursal cell of Spalding was but a narrow and 
humble place compared with its great mother-house at 
Crowland : it seemed to stand upon piles driven deep 
into the marshy ground; the lower part of the building 
was of stone, brick, and rubble, and very strong; but 
all the upper part was of wood, even as the wayfaring 
novice had lamented. A few small round-headed 
arches, with short thick mullions, showed where was 
the chapel, and where the hall, which last served as 
refectory, chapter, and for many other uses. Detached 
from the chapel was a low thick campanile or bell- 
tower, constructed like the main building, partly of 
stone, brick, and rubble, and partly of timber, the 
upper part having open arches, through which might 
be seen the squat old bell and the ponderous mallet, 
which served instead of a clapper. The Welland 
almost washed the back of the house, and a deep 
trench, filled by the water of the river, went round 
the other sides. Without being hailed or seen by 


6 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 

any one, the young man walked round from the river 
bank to the front of the house, where the walls were 
pierced by a low arched gateway, and one small grated 
window a little above the arch. ‘ The brothers are all 
asleep, and before supper time ! ’ said the novice, ‘ but 
I must rouse old Hubert.' He then blew his horn as 
loud as he could blow it. After a brief pause a loud 
but cracked voice cried from within the gates, ‘ Who 
comes hither, after evening song ? ’ 

‘It is I, Elfric the novice.’ 

‘ The voice is verily that of child Elfric; but I must 
see with my eyes as well as hear with mine ears, for 
the Norman be prowling all about, and these be times 
when the wolf counterfeiteth the voice of the lamb.’ 

‘Open, Hubert, open,’ cried the novice, ‘open, in 
the name of Saint Chad ! for I am wet, tired, and 
a-hungered, and the evening wind is beginning to 
blow coldly from the meres. Open thy gate, Hubert, 
and let fall the bridge; I am so hungry that I could 
eat the planks ! Prithee, is supper ready ? ’ 

To this earnest address no answer was returned; 
but after a minute or two the twilight showed a 
cowled head behind the grates of the window—a head 
that seemed nearly all eyes, so intensely did the door- 
porter look forth across the moat—and then the voice 
which before had been heard below, was heard above, 
saying, ‘ The garb and figure be verily those of Elfric, 
and the water streams from him to the earth. Ho ! 
Elfric the novice—an thou be he—throw back thy 
hood, and give the sign ! ’ 

‘ Abbat Thurstan and Saint Etheldreda for the East 
Englanders ! ’ shouted the young man. 

Here, another voice was heard from within the 
building calling out, ‘ Hubert, whom challengest ? Is 
it Elfric returning from Crowland ? ’ 


THE MESSENGER 


7 


‘ \ ea/ quoth the portarius, f it is Elfric the novice 
safe back from Crowland, but dripping like a water- 
rat, and shivering in the wind. Come, help me lower 
the bridge, and let him in.’ 

The gate was soon opened, and the narrow draw¬ 
bridge lowered. The youth entered, and then helped 
to draw up the bridge and make fast the iron-studded 
door. Within the archw r ay every member of the little 
community, except those who were preparing the 
evening repast or spreading the tables in the refectory, 
and the superior who was prevented by his gout and 
his dignity from descending to the door-way to meet 
a novice (be his errand what it might), was standing 
on tip-toe, and open-mouthed for news; but Elfric 
was a practised messenger, and knowing that the 
bringer of bad news is apt to meet with a cold wel¬ 
come, and that the important tidings he brought ought 
to be communicated first to the head of the house, he 
hurried through the throng, and crossing a cloistered 
court, and ascending a flight of stairs, he went straight 
to the cell of Father Adhelm, the sub-prior of Crow- 
land Abbey, who ruled the succursal cell of Spalding. 
The monks followed him into the room; but the 
novices and lay-brothers stopped short at the thres¬ 
hold, taking care to keep the door ajar so that they 
might hear whatsoever was said within. ‘ I give thee 
my benison, oh, my child ! and may the saints bless 
thee, for thou art back sooner than I weened. But 
speak, oh Elfric ! quick ! tell me what glad tidings 
thou bringest from my Lord Abbat and our faithful 
brethren at Crowland, and what news of that son of 
the everlasting fire, our evil neighbour Ivo Taille-Bois ? ’ 

After he had reverentially kissed the hand of his 
superior, Elfric the novice spake and said : 

‘ Father, I bring no glad tidings; my news be all 


8 THE CAMP OF REFUGE 

bad news ! Ivo Taille-Bois is coming against us to 
complete his iniquities, by finishing our destruction; 
and the Abbat and our faithful brethren at Crowland 
are harassed and oppressed themselves, and cannot 
help us ! ’ 

The faces of the monks grew very long; but they 
all said in one voice, f Elfric, thou dreamest. Elfric, 
thou speakest of things that cannot be ; for hath not 
my Lord Abbat obtained the king’s peace, and security 
for the lives of all his flock and the peaceful possession 
of all our houses, succursal cells, churches and chapels, 
farms and lands whatsoever, together with our mills, 
fisheries, stews, warrens, and all thing appertaining to 
our great house and order ? ’ 

One of the primary duties imposed upon novices 
was to be silent when the elders spake. Elfric stood 
with his hands crossed upon his breast and with his 
eyes bent upon the floor, until his superior said, f Peace, 
brothers ! let there be silence until the youth hath 
reported what he hath heard and seen.’ And then 
turning to Elfric, Father Adhelm added, ‘ Bring you 
no missive from our good Abbat ? ’ 

‘Yea,’ said the novice, ‘I am the bearer of an 
epistle from my Lord Abbat to your reverence; and 
lo! it is here.’ And he drew forth from under his 
inner garment a round case made of tin, and presented 
it most respectuously to the superior. 

f I am enduring the pains of the body as well as the 
agony of the spirit,’ said the superior, * and my swollen 
right hand refuses its office; brother Cedric, undo the 
case.’ 

Cedric took the case, opened it, took out a scroll of 
parchment, kissed it as if it had been a relic, unrolled 
it, and handed it to the superior. 

' Verily this is a long missive,’ said the superior, 


THE MESSENGER 


9 

running his eyes over it, ‘and alack, and woe the 
while, it commenceth with words of ill omen! 
Brethren, my eyes are dim and cannot read by twi¬ 
light : the body moreover is faint, I having fasted 
from everything but prayer and meditation since the 
mid-day refection; and then, as ye can bear witness, 
I ate no meat, but only picked a stewed pike of the 
smallest. Therefore, brethren, I opine that we had 
better read my Lord Abbat’s epistle after supper 
(when will they strike upon that refectory bell ?), and 
only hear beforehand what Elfric hath to say.’ 

The cloister-monks gladly assented, for they were 
as hungry as their chief, and, not being very quick at 
reading, were glad that the superior had not called 
for lights in the cell, and called upon them to read 
the letter. 

‘Now speak, Elfric, and to the point; tell the tale 
shortly, and after the evening meal the lamp shall be 
trimmed and we will draw our stools round the hearth 
in the hall, and read the abbat’s epistle and deliberate 
thereupon.’ 

Upon this injunction of Father Adhelm, the youth 
began to relate with very commendable brevity, that 
the abbey of Crowland was surrounded and in good 
part occupied by Norman knights and men-at-arms, 
who were eating the brotherhood out of house and 
home, and committing every kind of riot and excess; 
that the abbat had in vain pleaded the king’s peace, 
and shown the letters of protection granted him by 
Lanfranc, the new foreign primate of the kingdom ; 
that the Normans had seized upon all the horses and 
mules and boats of the community; and that the 
abbat (having received disastrous intelligence from 
the north and from other parts of England where 
the Saxon patriots had endeavoured to resist the 


10 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


conqueror), had fallen sick, and had scarcely strength 
to dictate and sign the letter he brought. 

‘These are evil tidings indeed/ said the superior, 
‘but the storm is yet distant, and may blow over 
without reaching us. It is many a rood from Crow- 
land to Spalding, and there is many a bog between us. 
Those accursed knights and men-at-arms will not 
readily risk their horses and their own lives in our 
fens; and now that Ivo Taille-Bois hath so often 
emptied our granaries, and hath crippled or carried 
off all our cattle, we have the protecting shield of 
poverty. There is little to be got here but bare walls* 
and Ivo, having the grant of the neighbouring lands 
from the man they call King William, is not willing 
that any robber but himself should come hitherward. 
His mansion guards the causeway, and none can pass 
thereon without his bene placet. But, O Elfric ! what 
of the demon-possessed Ivo ? Rests he not satisfied 
with the last spoils he made on our poor house ? 
Abides he not true to his compact that he would 
come no more, but leave us to enjoy his king’s peace 
and the peace of the Lord ? Heeds he not the 
admonition addressed to him by Lanfranc ? Speak, 
Elfric, and be quick, for methinks I hear the step of 
the cellarer by the refectory door.’ 

‘ The strong keep no compact with the weak,’ 
responded the novice, ‘and these lawless marauders 
care little for William their king, less for their arch¬ 
bishop, and nothing for the Lord ! While I was hid 
in Crowland Abbey waiting for my Lord Abbat’s 
letter, I heard from one of the friars who can interpret 
their speech, that some of these Normans were saying 
that Ivo Taille-Bois wanted the snug nest at Spalding 
to put cleaner birds into it: that Ivo had made his 
preparations to dispossess us. And lo! as I came 


11 


THE MESSENGER 

homeward through the fens, and passed as near as I 
might to the manor-house which Taille-Bois made his 
own by forcibly marrying the good Saxon owner of 
it, I heard the flourish of trumpets, and anon I saw, 
tramping along the causeway towards the well-garri¬ 
soned manor-house, forty Norman men-at-arms ! * 

‘ Not so, surely not so, Elfric,’ said the superior in a 
quake, ‘ danger cannot be so near us as that! * 

‘ His eyes must have deceived him,’ cried all the 
brothers. 

‘ Nay,’ said the youth, e I saw, as plainly as I now 
see the faces of this good company, their lances glint¬ 
ing in the setting sun, and their bright steel caps and 
their grey mail, and . . 

‘ Fen-grass and willows,’ cried the superior, who 
seemed determined not to give credit to the evil 
tidings, ‘ what thou tookest for spears were bulrushes 
waving in the breeze, and thy steel-caps and grey 
mails were but the silvery sides of the willow-leaves 
turned upwards by the wind ! Boy, fasting weakens 
the sight and makes it dim ! ’ 

{ Would it were so,’ quoth Elfric; 1 but so was it 
not! I heard the trumpet give challenge from the 
battlements—I heard the other trumpet give response 
—I heard the tramping of many hoofs along the hard 
solid causeway; and, creeping nearer to the road, I 
saw lances and horses and men—and they were even 
forty! ’ 

‘ It cannot be,' said one of the monks, ( for, when he 
made his last paction with us, Ivo Taille-Bois swore, 
not only by three Saxon saints but eke by six saints of 
Normandie, that he would do us and our house no 
further wrong.’ 

‘The senses are deceptious/ said another of the 
brotherhood. 


12 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 

‘ The foul fiend, who often lurks in these wilder¬ 
nesses and plays fiery pranks in our fens, may have 
put it into this youth’s head to mar our peace with 
false alarms,’ quoth another monk. 

' Say warning, and not false alarm,’ rejoined Elfric 
rather petulantly. ' If you will not be warned, you 
will be surprised in your sleep or at your meals. 1 hese 
forty men-at-arms cannot come hither for other purpose 
than that of finishing our ruin and driving us hence. 
As sure as the sun riseth they will be here to-morrow 
morning.’ 

'The boy chafes, and loses respect for his elders,’ 
said the monk who had last spoken. 

‘ Let him sup with the cats ! ’ cried the superior. 

At this moment a bell was struck below; and at the 
signal the novices and lay-brothers ran from the door 
at which they had been listening, and the superior, 
followed by the monks, and at a respectful distance by 
the reproved and vexed novice, hobbled down stairs to 
the refectory. 

The aspect of that hall, with its blazing wood fire, 
abundant tapers and torches, and w r ell-spread tables, 
intimated that the superior’s account of the poverty 
and destitution to which Ivo the Norman had reduced 
the house was only figurative or comparative. That 
good father took his place at the head of the table; 
the monks took their seats according to their degree of 
antiquity; the novices and the lay-brothers sat below 
the salt; and poor Elfric, submissive to his penance, 
sat down cross-legged on the rushes in the middle of 
the floor, and in the midst of all the cats of the estab¬ 
lishment, who, I wist, knew as well as the monks the 
meaning of the dinner and supper bell, and always 
trooped into the refectory to share the fragments of 
the feast. One of the novices ascended a little pulpit 


13 


% 


THE MESSENGER 

raised high in one of the angles of the hall, and the 
superior having blessed the good things placed before 
him, this young novice read from the book of Psalms 
while the rest of the company ate their meal. After 
all had been served, even to the meanest of the lay- 
brothers, Elfric’s bread and meat and his stoup of wine 
were handed to him on the floor—and then was seen 
what it signified to sup with the cats ; for tabbies, greys, 
blacks, and whites, all whisked their tails, and purred 
and mewed, and scratched round about him, greedy to 
partake with him, and some of the most daring even 
dipped their whiskers into his porringer, or scratched 
the meat from his spoon before it could reach his 
mouth. Nevertheless the young man made a hearty 
meal, and so, in spite of their fears and anxieties, did 
all the rest of that devout community. As grace was 
said, and as the reader was descending from the pulpit 
to do as the others had done, the superior, after swal¬ 
lowing a cup of wine, said rather blithely, f Now trim 
the good lamp and feed the fire, close the door, and 
place seats and the reading-desk round the hearth.’ 

As the novices and lay-brothers hastened to do these 
biddings. Father Cedric whispered to the superior, 
‘ Would it not be fitting to shut out the young and the 
unordained, and deliberate by ourselves, maturi fmires}' 

f No,’ replied the superior, f we be all alike con¬ 
cerned ; let novices and lay-brothers stay where they 
are and hear the words of our Lord Abbat. If danger 
be so nigh, all must prepare to meet it, and some may 
be wanted to run into Spalding town to call upon all 
good Christians and true Saxons there to come to the 
rescue.’ 

Then turning to the youth on the rushes he said, 
f Elfric the messenger, thou mayest rise and take thy 
seat in thy proper place: I cannot yet believe all 


14 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


thy news, and thou spokest when thou oughtest not to 
have spoken; but these are days of tribulation, and 
mischief may be nearer than we thought it. Yet, 
blessed be God ! that provides food and drink for His 
creatures, and that makes the bounteous meal and the 
red wine revive the heart and courage of man, I feel 
very differently now from what I felt before supper, 
and can better bear the weight of evil news, and more 
boldly face the perils that may lie in my path/ By 
words or by looks all the brotherhood re-echoed this 
last sentiment. 


CHAPTER II 


THE SUCCURSAL CELL 

The Abbat of Crowland’s letter, read aloud and slowly 
by the cheerful fire, had no note of gladness in it. It 
began, ‘Woe to the Church! woe to the servants of 
God ! woe to all of the Saxon race ! ’ and it ended with, 
f Woe ! woe ! woe ! * It related how all the prelates of 
English birth were being expelled by foreign priests, 
some from France and some from Italy; how nearly 
every Saxon abbat had been deprived, and nearly every 
religious house seized by men-at-arms and given over 
to strange shavelings from Normandy, from Anjou, 
from Picardy, from Maine, from Gascony, and number¬ 
less other parts, and how these alien monks, who could 
not speak the tongue which Englishmen spoke, were 
occupying every pulpit and confessional, and consign¬ 
ing the people to perdition because they spoke no 
French, and preferred their old masters and teachers 
to their new ones, put over them by violence and the 
sword! Jealousies and factions continued to rage 
among the Saxon lords and among those that claimed 
kindred with the national dynasties; sloth and gluttony, 
and the dulness of the brain they produce, rendered 
of no avail the might of the Saxon arm, and the courage 
of the Saxon heart. Hence a dies irce, a day of God’s 
wrath. Aldred, the Archbishop of York, had died of 

very grief and anguish of mind: Stigand, the English 

15 


16 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


and the true Archbishop of Canterbury, after wandering 
in the Danelagh and in Scotland, and flying for his life 
from many places, had gone in helpless condition to 
the Camp of Refuge in the Isle of Ely: Edgar Etheling, 
that royal boy, had been deserted by the Danes, who 
had crossed the seas in many ships to aid him; and he 
had fled once more in a denuded state to the court of 
Malcolm Caenmore, the Scottish king. In all the north 
of England there had been a dismal slaughter: from 
York to Durham not an inhabited village remained— 
fire and the sword had made a wilderness there—and 
from Durham north to Hexham, from the Wear to 
the Tyne, the remorseless conqueror, Herodes Herodc 
ferocior , a crueller Herod than the Herod of old, had 
laid waste the land and slaughtered the people. York 
Minster had been destroyed by fire, and every church, 
chapel, and religious house had been either destroyed 
or plundered by the Normans. Everywhere the Saxon 
patriots, after brief glimpses of success, had met with 
defeat and extermination, save and except only in the 
Camp of Refuge and the Isle of Ely; and there too 
misfortune had happened. Edwin and Morcar, the 
sons of Alfgar, brothers-in-law to King Harold, and the 
best and the bravest of the Saxon nobles, had quitted 
the Camp of Refuge, that last asylum of Anglo-Saxon 
independence, and had both perished. All men of 
name and fame were perishing. The Saxon com¬ 
monalty were stupefied with amazement and terror,— 
Pavefactus est Populus. The Normans were making war 
even upon the dead or upon the tombs of those who 
had done honour to their country as patriots, warriors, 
spiritual teachers, and saints. Frithric, the right- 
hearted Abbat of St. Albans, had been driven from his 
abbey with all his brethren ; and Paul, a young man 
from Normandie and a reputed son of the intrusive 


17 


THE SUCCURSAL CELL 

Archbishop Lanfranc, had been thrust in his place. 
And this Paul, as his first act in office, had demolished 
the tombs of all his predecessors whom he called rude 
and idiotic men, because they were of the English race ! 
And next, this Paul had sent over into Normandie for 
all his poor relations and friends—men ignorant of 
letters and of depraved morals—and he was dividing 
among this foul rapacious crew the woods and the 
farms, all the possessions and all the offices of the 
church and abbey of St. Albans. Crowland was 
threatened with the same fate, and he, the abbat, 
was sick and broken-hearted, and could oppose the 
Normans only with prayers—with prayers to which, 
on account of the sins of the nation, the blessed Virgin 
and the saints were deaf. The brethren in the 
succursal cell at Spalding must look to themselves, 
for he, the abbat, could give them no succour; and he 
knew of a certainty that Ivo Taille-Bois had promised 
the cell to some of his kith and kin in foreign parts. 

The reading of this sad letter was interrupted by 
many ejaculations and expressions of anger and horror, 
grief and astonishment; and when it was over, the 
spirits of the community were so depressed that the 
superior thought himself absolutely compelled to call 
upon the cellarer and bid him fill the stoups again, 
to the end that there might be another short Biberes. 
When the monks had drunk in silence, and had 
crossed themselves after the draught, they began to 
ask each other what was to be done ? for they no 
longer doubted that Elfric had seen the forty men-at- 
arms in the neighbourhood, or that Ivo Taille-Bois 
would be thundering at their gate in the morning. 
Some proposed sending a messenger into Spalding 
town, which was scarcely more than two good bow¬ 
shots distant from the cell, lighting the beacon on the 


B 


18 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


tower, and sounding all the blast-horns on the house¬ 
top to summon the whole neighbourhood to their aid; 
but the superior bade them reflect that this would 
attract the notice of Ivo Taille-Bois, and be considered 
as an hostile defiance; that the neighbourhood was 
very thinly peopled by inexpert and timid serfs, and 
that most of the good men of Spalding town who 
possessed arms and the art of wielding them had 
already taken their departure for the Camp of Refuge. 
At last the superior said : 

‘We cannot attempt a resistance, for by means of a 
few lighted arrows the children of Satan would set fire 
to o.ur upper works, and so burn our house over our 
heads. We must submit to the will of Heaven, and 
endeavour to turn aside the wrath of our arch¬ 
persecutor. Lucia, the wife of Ivo Taille-Bois, was 
a high-born Saxon maiden when he seized upon her 
(after slaying her friends), and made her his wife in 
order to have the show of a title to the estates. As a 
maiden Lucia was ever good and Saxon - hearted, 
especially devout to our patron saint, and a passing 
good friend and benefactress to this our humble cell. 
She was fair among the daughters of men, fairest in a 
land where the strangers themselves vouchsafe to say 
that beauty and comeliness abound; she may have 
gotten some sway over the fierce mind of her husband, 
and at her supplications Ivo may be made to forego 
his wicked purposes. Let us send a missive to the 
fair Lucia.’ 

Here Brother Cedric reminded Father Adhelm that 
a letter would be of little use, inasmuch as the fair 
Lucia could not read, and had nobody about her in 
the manor-house that could help her in this particular. 

‘Well, then,’ said the superior, ‘let us send that 
trusty and nimble messenger Elfric to the 


manor- 


THE SUCCURSAL CELL 


19 


house, and let him do his best to get access to the 
lady and acquaint her with our woes and fears. What 
sayest thou, good Elfric ? * 

Albeit the novice thought that he had been but 
badly rewarded for his last service, he crossed his arms 
on his breast, bowed his head, and said : 

‘ Obedience is my duty. I will adventure to the 
manor-house, I will try to see the Lady Lucia, I will 
go into the jaws of the monster, if it pleaseth your 
reverence to command me so to do. But, if these 
avails were all of stone and brick, I would rather stay 
and fight behind them : for I trow that the fair Lucia 
hath no more power over Ivo Taille-Bois than the 
lamb hath over the wolf, or the sparrow over the 
sparro w r -ha wk. ’ 

f But/ said the superior, f unless Heaven vouchsafe a 
miracle, we have no other hope or chance than this. 
Good Elfric, go to thy cell and refresh thyself with 
sleep, for thou hast been a wayfarer through long and 
miry roads, and needest rest. We too are weary men, 
for we have read a very long letter and deliberated 
long on weighty trying business, and the hour is 
growing very late. Let us then all to bed, and at 
earliest morning dawn, after complines, thou wilt gird 
up thy loins and take thy staff in thine hand, and I 
will tell thee how to bespeak the Lady Lucia, an thou 
canst get to her presence. I will take counsel of my 
pillow, and call upon the saints to inspire me with a 
moving message that I shall send.’ 

Elfric humbly saluted the superior and all his elders 
by name, wished them a holy night, and withdrew 
from the refectory and hall to seek the rest which he 
really needed ; but before entering his cell he went to 
the house-top to look out at the broad moon, and the 
wood, and the river, and the open country, intersected 


20 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 

by deep cuts and ditches, which lay in front of the 
succursal cell. The night had become frosty, and the 
moon and the stars were shining their brightest in a 
transparent atmosphere. As the novice looked up the 
course of the Welland he thought he distinguished 
something afar off floating on the stream. He looked 
again, and felt certain that a large boat was descending 
the river towards the house. He remained silent and 
almost breathless until the vessel came so near that he 
was enabled to see that the boat w r as filled with 
men-at-arms, all clad in mail, who held their lances in 
their hands, and whose shields were fastened to the 
sides of the boat, glittering in the moonlight. 

‘1 count forty and one lances and forty and one 
shields/ said the youth to himself, ‘but these good 
friars will tell me that I have seen bulrushes and 
willow-leaves.’ 

He closed his eyes for a time and then rubbed them 
and looked out again. There was the boat, and there 
were the lances and the shields and the men-at-arms, 
only nearer and more distinct, for the current of the 
river was rapid, and some noiseless oars or paddles 
were at work to increase the speed without giving the 
alarm. 

‘ I see what is in the wind/ thought Elfric; ' the 
Normans would surprise us and expel us by night, 
without rousing the good people of Spalding town.’ 

He ran down the spiral staircase; but, short as was 
the time that he had been on the housetop, every 
light had been extinguished in the hall during the 
interval, every cell-door had been closed ; and a chorus 
of loud snores that echoed along the corridor told him 
that, maugre their troubles and alarms, all the monks, 
novices, and lay-brothers were already fast asleep. 

‘ I will do what I can do/ said the youth, f for if I 


THE SUCCURSAL CELL 


21 


wake the superior he will do nothing. If the men of 
Spalding town cannot rescue us, they shall at least be 
witnesses to the wrongs put upon us. Nay, Gurth the 
smith, and Wybert the wheelwright, and Nat the 
weaver, and Leolf the woodsman, be brave-hearted 
knaves, and have the trick of archery. From the yon 
side of those ditches and trenches, which these heavy- 
armed Normans cannot pass, perchance a hole or two 
may be driven into their chain jerkins !’ 

Taking the largest horn in the house he again 
ascended to the roof, and turning towards the little 
town he blew with all his strength and skill, and kept 
blowing until he was answered by three or four horns 
in the town. By this time the boat was almost under 
the walls of the monastery, and an arrow from it came 
whistling close over the youth’s head. 

‘There are neither battlements nor parapets here,’ 
said he, ‘ and it is now time to rouse the brethren.’ 

In a moment he was in the corridor rapping at the 
doors of the several cells, wherein the monks slept on, 
not hearing the blowing of the horns; but before half 
the inmates were roused from their deep slumber the 
Normans had landed from the boat, and had come 
round to the front of the house shouting : 

‘Taille-Bois ! Taille-Bois ! Notre Dame to our aid ! 
and Taille-Bois to his own ! Get up, ye Saxon churls, 
that be ever sleeping or eating, and make way for 
better men ! ’ 

The superior forgot his gout and ran to the hall. 
They all ran to the hall, friars, novices, lay-brothers, 
and hinds, and lights were brought in and hurried 
deliberations commenced, in which every one took 
part. Although there was overmuch sloth, there was 
little cowardice among these recluses. If there had 
been any chance of making good the defence of the 


22 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 

house, well I ween the major part of them would have 
voted for resistance; but chance there was none, and 
therefore, with the exception of Elfric, whose courage, 
at this time of his life, bordered on rashness, they all 
finally agreed with the superior that the wisest things 
to do would be to bid Hubert the portarius throw 
open the gate and lower the bridge ; to assemble the 
whole community in the chapel, light up all tapers on 
the high altar and shrines, and chant the Libera Nos, 
Domine —Good Lord, deliver us ! 

( It is not psalmody that will save us from expul¬ 
sion,’ thought Elfric. 

Now Hubert the porter was too old and too much 
disturbed in spirit to do all that he had to do without 
help; and Father Cedric bade the sturdy novice go 
and assist him. 

‘ May I die the death of a dog—may I be hanged 
on a Norman gibbet,’ said Elfric to himself, ‘ if I help 
to open the gates to these midnight robbers ! ’ 

And instead of following Hubert down to the gate, 
he went again (sine Abbatis licentid , without license or 
knowledge of his superior) to the house-top, to see 
whether any of the folk of Spalding town had ven¬ 
tured to come nigh. As he got to the corner of the 
roof from which he had blown the horn, he heard loud 
and angry voices below, and curses and threats in 
English and in Norman-French. And he saw about 
a score of Spalding-men in their sheepskin jackets and 
with bows and knives in their hands, menacing and 
reviling the mail-clad men-at-arms. The Saxons soon 
got themselves well covered from the foe by a broad 
deep ditch, and by a bank; but some of the Normans 
had brought their bow r s with them, and a shaft let fly 
at the right moment when one of the Saxons was 
exposing his head and shoulders above the bank, took 


THE SUCCURSAL CELL 23 

effect, and was instantly followed by a wild scream or 
yell: 

f Wybert is down ! Wybert is slain ! ’ 

‘ Then this to avenge him, for Wybert was a good 
man and true’; and Elfric, who had brought a bow 
with him from the corridor, drew the string to his ear 
and let fly an arrow which killed the Norman that had 
killed Wybert the wright. It was the men-at-arms 
who now yelled; and, even as their comrade was in 
the act of falling, a dozen more arrows came whistling 
among them from behind the bank and made them 
skip. 

Ivo Taille-Bois lifted up his voice and shouted, 
f Saxon churls, ye mean to befriend your faineant 
monks; but if ye draw another bow I will set fire to 
the cell and grill them all! * 

This was a terrible threat, and the poor men of 
Spalding knew too well that Ivo could easily do that 
which he threatened. The noise had reached the 
chapel, where the superior was robing himself, and 
Father Cedric came to the house-top to conjure the 
Saxons to retire and leave the servants of the saints to 
the protection of the saints. At the top of the spiral 
staircase he found the novice with the bow in his 
hand ; and he said unto him : 

‘ What dost thou here, et sine licentia ? * 

‘ I am killing Normans/ said Elfric; f but Wybert 
the wright is slain, and the men of Spalding are losing 
heart.’ 

f Mad boy, get thee down, or we shall all be burned 
alive. Go help Hubert unbar the gate and drop the 
bridge.’ 

‘That will I never, though I break my monastic 
vow of obedience/ said the youth. ‘ But hark ! the 
chain rattles !—the bridge is down—the hinge creaks 


24 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 

—by heaven! the gate is open—Ivo Taille-Bois and 
his devils are in the house ! Then is this no place 
for me ! ’ 

And before the monk could check him, or say 
another word to him, the novice rushed to the opposite 
side and leaped from the roof into the deep moat. 
Forgetting his mission — which was to conjure the 
Saxons in the name of Father Adhelm the superior 
of the house not to try the arms of the flesh,—old 
Cedric followed to the spot whence the bold youth 
had taken his spring, but before he got there Elfric 
had swum the moat and was making fast for the 
Welland, in the apparent intention of getting into the 
fens beyond the river, where Norman pursuit after 
him could be of no avail. The monk then went 
towards the front of the building and addressed the 
Saxons who still lingered behind the ditch and the 
bank, bemoaning the fate of Wybert, and not knowing 
what to do. Raising his voice so that they might hear 
him, Cedric beseeched them to go back to their homes 
in the town; and he was talking words of peace unto 
them when he was struck from behind by a heavy 
Norman sword which cleft his cowl and his skull in 
twain: and he fell over the edge of the wall into the 
moat. Some of the men-at-arms had seen Elfric bend¬ 
ing his bow on the house-top, and the Norman who 
had been slain had pointed, while dying, in that 
direction. After gaining access they had slain old 
Hubert and the lay-brother who had assisted him in 
lowering the drawbridge; and then, while the rest 
rushed towards the chapel, two of the men-at-arms 
found their way to the roof, and there seeing Cedric 
they despatched him as the fatal archer and as the 
daring monk who had blown the horn to call out the 
men of Spalding. As Father Cedric fell into the 


THE SUCCURSAL CELL 


2 5 


moat, and the Normans were seen in possession of 
the cell, the men of Spalding withdrew, and carried 
with them the body of Wybert. But if they withdrew 
to their homes, it was but for a brief season and in 
order to carry off their moveable goods and their 
families; for they all knew that Ivo Taille-Bois would 
visit the town with fire and sword. Some fled across 
the Welland and the fens to go in search of the Camp 
of Refuge, and others took their way towards the wild 
and lonesome shores of the Wash. 

But how fared the brotherhood in the chapel below? 
As Ivo Taille-Bois at the head of his men-at-arms 
burst into the holy place—made holy by the relics of 
more than one Saxon saint, and by the tomb and 
imperishable body of a Saxon who had died a saint 
and martyr at the hand of the Danish Pagans in the 
old time, before the name of Normans was ever heard 
of—the superior and friars, dressed in their stoles, as 
if for high mass, and the novices and the lay-brothers, 
were all chanting the Libera Nos; and they seemed 
not to be intimidated or disturbed by the flashing of 
swords and lances, or by the sinful imprecations of 
the invaders; for still they stood where they were, 
in the midst of tapers and flambards, as motionless 
as the stone effigies of the saints in the niches of the 
chapel; and their eyes moved not from the books of 
prayer, and their hands trembled not, and still they 
chanted in the glorious strain of the Gregorian chant 
(which Time had not mended). Libera Nos, Domine ! 
‘ Good Lord, deliver us ! ’ and when they had finished 
the supplication, they struck up in a more cheerful 
note, Deus Noster Refugium, God is our Refuge. 

Fierce and unrighteous man as he was, Ivo Taille- 
Bois stood for a season on the threshold of the chapel 
with his mailed elbow leaning on the font that held 


26 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


the holy water; and, as the monks chanted, some of 
his men-at-arms crossed themselves and looked as if 
they were conscious of doing unholy things which 
ought not to be done. But when the superior glanced 
at him a look of defiance, and the choir began to sing 
Quid gloriaris ? ‘ Why boasteth thou thyself, thou 

tyrant, that thou canst do mischief?’ Ivo bit his lips, 
raised up his voice—raised it higher than the voices 
of the chanting monks, and said : 

'Sir Priest, or prior, come forth and account to the 
servant of thy lawful King William of Normandie for 
thy unlawful doings, for thy gluttonies, backslidings, 
and rebellions, for thy uncleanliness of life and thy 
disloyalty of heart! ’ 

But Father Adhelm moved not, and still the monks 
sang on: and they came to the versets—‘ Thou hast 
loved to speak all words that may do hurt; oh ! thou 
false tongue—therefore shall God destroy thee for 
ever: He shall take thee and pluck thee out of thy 
dwelling.’ 

( False monk, I will first pluck thee out of thine,’ 
cried Ivo, who knew enough church Latin to know 
what the Latin meant that the monks were chanting 
and he strode across the chapel towards the superior, 
and some of his men-at-arms strode hastily after him, 
making the stone floor of the chapel ring with the 
heavy tread of their iron-bound shoon; and some of 
the men-at-arms stood fast by the chapel door, playing 
with the fingers of their gloves of mail and looking in 
one another’s eyes or down to the ground, as if they 
liked not the work that Ivo had in hand. 

The monks, the novices, the lay-brothers, all gathered 
closely round their superior and linked their arms to¬ 
gether so as to prevent Ivo from reaching him ; and 
the superior, taking his crucifix of gold from his girdle. 


THE SUCCURSAL CELL 27 

and raising it high above his head and above the 
heads of those who girded him in, and addressing 
the Norman chief as an evil spirit, or as Sathanas 
the father of all evil spirits, he bade him avaunt! 
Ivo had drawn his sword, but at the sight of the cross 
he hesitated to strike, and even retired a few steps in 
arrear. Ihe monks renewed their chant; nor stopped, 
nor "were interrupted by any of the Normans until 
they had finished this Psalm. But when it was done 
Ivo Taille-Bois roared out: 

‘ Friars, this is psalmody enough ! Men-at-arms, 
your trumpets ! Sound the charge.’ 

And three Normans put each a trumpet to his lips 
and sounded the charge ; which brought all the men- 
at-arms careering against the monks and the novices 
and the lay-brothers; so that the living fence was 
broken and some of the brethren were knocked down 
and trampled under foot, and a path was opened for 
Ivo, who first took the golden crucifix from the uplifted 
hand of Father Ad helm and put it round his own neck, 
and then took the good father by the throat and bade 
him come forth from the chapel into the hall, where 
worldly business might be done without offering insult 
or violence to the high altar. 

f I will first pour out the curses of the Church on 
thy sacrilegious head,’ said the superior, throwing off 
the Norman count, and with so much strength that 
Ivo reeled and would have fallen to the ground among 
the prostrate monks, if he had not first fallen against 
some of his men-at-arms. Father Adhelm broke away 
from another Norman who clutched him, but in so 
doing he left nearly all his upper garment in the 
soldier’s hand, and he was rent and ragged and with¬ 
out his crucifix when he reached the steps of the altar 
and began his malediction. 


28 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


‘Stop the shaveling’s tongue, but shed no blood 
here,’ cried Ivo; e seize him, seize them all, and bring 
them into the refectory ! ’—and so saying the chief 
rushed out of the chapel into the hall. 

It was an unequal match—thirty-nine men-at-arms 
against a few monks and boys and waiting men ; yet 
before the superior could be dragged from the high 
altar, and conveyed with all his community into the 
hall, several of the Normans were made to measure 
their length on the chapel floor (they could not 
wrestle like our true Saxons), and some of them were 
so squeezed within their mail sleeves and gorgets by 
the grip of Saxon hands, that they bore away the 
marks and smarts that lasted them many a day. It 
was for this that one of them cut the weazen of the 
sturdy old cook as soon as he got him outside the 
chapel door, and that another of them cut off the ears 
of the equally stout cellarer. 

At last they were all conveyed, bound with their 
cords or girdles, into the hall. The Taille-Bois, with 
his naked sword in his hand, and with a man-at-arms 
on either side of him, sat at the top of the hall in the 
superior’s chair of state; and the superior and the 
rest of the brotherhood were brought before him like 
criminals. 

‘ Brother to the devil,’ said Ivo, ‘ what was meant 
by thy collecting of armed men—rebel and traitor 
serfs that shall rue the deed !—thy sounding of horns 
on the house-top; thy fighting monks that have killed 
one of my best men-at-arms; thy long delay in opening 
thy doors to those who knocked at them in the name 
of King William; thy outrages in the chapel, and all 
thy other iniquities which I have so oft-times pardoned 
at the prayer of the Lady Lucia ? Speak, friar, and 
tell me why I should not hang thee over thine own 


THE SUCCURSAL CELL 


29 


gateway as a terror and an example to all the other 
Saxon monks in this country, who are all in their 
hearts enemies and traitors to the good king that 
God and victory have put over this land ! * 

Had it not been that Father Adhelm was out of 
breath, from his wrestling in the chapel, I wist he 
never would have allowed Ivo Taille-Bois to speak so 
long without interruption. But by the time the Nor¬ 
man paused, the superior had partly recovered his 
breath; and he did not keep the Norman waiting for 
his answer. 

‘ Son of the fire everlasting,’ cried Adhelm, f it is 
for me to ask what meanest thou by thy transgres¬ 
sions, past and present ? Why hast thou from thy 
first coming among us never ceased from troubling me 
and these other servants of the saints, the brothers 
of this poor cell ? Why hast thou seized upon and 
emptied our granaries and our cellars (more the 
possessions of the saints and of the poor than our 
possessions) ? Why hast thou carried off the best of 
our cattle ? Why hast thou and thy people lamed 
our horses and our oxen, and killed our sheep and 
poultry ? Why hast thou caused to be assailed on 
the roads, and beaten with staves and swords, the 
lay-brothers and servants of this house ? Why didst 
thou come at the dead of night like a chief of robbers 
with thy men-at-arms and cut-throats to break in upon 
us and to wound and slay the servants of the Lord, 
who have gotten thy king’s peace, and letters of pro¬ 
tection from the Archbishop Lanfranc ? O, Ivo Taille- 
Bois ! tell me why thou shouldst not be overtaken by 
the vengeance of man’s law in this world, and by 
eternal perdition in the next ? ’ 

Ivo was not naturally a man of many words; and 
thinking it best to cut the discussion short, he grinned 


30 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 

a grim grin, and said in a calm and business-like tone 
of voice : 

‘ Saxon ! we did not conquer thy country to leave 
Saxons possessed of its best fruits. Ibis house and 
these wide domains are much too good for thee and 
thine: I want them, and long have wanted them, to 
bestow upon others. Wot ye not that I have beyond 
the sea one brother and three cousins that have shaved 
their crowns and taken to thy calling—that in Nor¬ 
mandie, Anjou, and Maine there are many of my 
kindred and friends who wear hoods and look to me 
for provision and establishment in this land of ignor¬ 
ance and heresy, where none of your home-dwelling 
Saxon monks know how to make the tonsure in the 
right shape ? ’ 

f Woe to the land, and woe to the good Christian 
people of it! ’ said the superior and several of his 
monks; 'it is then to be with us as with the brother¬ 
hood of the great and holy abbey of St. Albans ! 
We are to be driven forth empty-handed and broken¬ 
hearted, and our places are to be supplied by rapaci¬ 
ous foreigners who speak not and understand not the 
tongue of the English people ! Ah woe ! was it for 
this that Saxon saints and martyrs died and bequeathed 
their bones to our keeping and their miracles to our 
superintendence; that Saxon kings and queens de¬ 
scended from their thrones to live among us, and 
die among us, and enrich us, so that we might give 
a beauty to holiness, a pomp and glory to the worship 
of heaven, and ample alms, and still more ample em¬ 
ployment to the poor ? Was it for this the great and 
good men of our race, our thanes and our earls, be¬ 
queathed lands and money to us ? Was it to fatten 
herds of alien monks, who follow in the bloody track 
of conquest and devastation, and come among us with 


THE SUCCURSAL CELL 


31 


swords and staves, and clad in mail even like your 
men-at-arms, that we and our predecessors in this 
cell have laboured without intermission to drain these 
bogs and fens, to make roads for the foot of man 
through this miry wilderness, to cut broad channels 
to carry off the waste waters to the great deep, to turn 
quagmires into bounteous corn-fields, and meres into 
green pastures ? ’ 

While the Saxon monks thus delivered themselves, 
Ivo and his Normans (or such of them as could under¬ 
stand what was said) ofttimes interrupted them, and 
spoke in this wise : 

‘ King William hath the sanction of his holiness 
the Pope for all that he hath done or doth. Lanfranc 
loveth not Saxon priests and monks, and Saxon priests 
and monks love not the king nor any of the Normans, 
but are ever privately preaching and prating about 
Harold and Edgar Etheling, and putting evil designs 
into the heads of the people. The Saxon saints are 
no saints: who ever heard their names beyond sea ? 
Their half-pagan kings and nobles have heaped wealth 
here and elsewhere that generous Norman knights and 
better bred Norman monks might have the enjoyment 
of it. The nest is too good for these foul birds: we 
have better birds to put into it. Let us then turn 
these Englishers out of doors/ 

The last evil deed was speedily done, and superior, 
monks, novices, lay-brothers, were all thrust out of 
the gateway, and driven across the bridge. If the 
well-directed arrow of Elfric had slain one man-at- 
arms and the folk of Spalding town had slightly 
wounded two or three others, the Normans had killed 
Father Cedric, Hubert the porter, and the man that 
assisted him, had killed the cook, and cut off the ears 
of the cellarer. The conquerors, therefore, sought to 


32 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 

shed no more blood, and the Taille-Bois was satisfied 
when he saw the brotherhood dispossessed and turned 
out upon the wide world with nothing they could call 
their own, except the sandals on their feet, and the 
torn clothes on their backs, and two or three church 
books. When a little beyond the moat they all shook 
the dust from their feet against the sons of the ever¬ 
lasting fire; and the superior, leisurely and in a low 
tone of voice, finished the malediction which he had 
begun in the chapel against Ivo Taille-Bois. This 
being over, Father Adhelm counted his little flock 
and said : 

f But oh, my children, where is the good Cedric ? ’ 

f Cedric was killed on the house-top, and lies dead 
in the moat/ said one of the lay-brothers who had 
learned his fate when the rest of the community w r ere 
ignorant of it. 

‘ Peace to his soul, and woe to him that slew him ! ’ 
said the superior; f but where is Elfric ? I see not 
the brave boy Elfric.’ 

‘ I saw Elfric outside the walls of our house and 
running for the Welland, just as the Normans were 
admitted,’ said the lay-brother who had before spoken, 
‘ and it must have been he that sent the arrow through 
the brain of the man-at-arms that lies there on the 
green sward.’ 

‘ He will send his arrows through the brains of many 
more of them,’ said the superior. ‘ My children, I feel 
the spirit of prophecy speaking within me, and I tell 
ye all that Elfric, our whilom novice, will live to do 
or cause to be done more mischief to the oppressors 
of his country than all the chiefs that have taken up 
arms against them. He hath a head to plan, and a 
heart to dare, and a strong hand to execute. I know 
the course he will take. He will return to the Isle of 


THE SUCCURSAL CELL 


33 


Ely, the place of his birth, in the midst of the many 
waters, and throw' himself into the Camp of Refuge, 
where the Saxon motto is “ Death or Indepen¬ 
dence.” ’ 

Before moving to the near bank of the Welland, or 
to the spot to which the Normans had sent down the 
ferry-boat. Father Adhelm again counted his little 
flock, and said, ‘ Cedric lies dead in the moat, Hubert 
and Bracho lie cold under the archway, Elfric the 
novice is fled to be a thorn in the sides of these 
Normans, but, oh tell me! where is good Oswald the 
cook ? ’ 

f After they had dragged your reverence into the 
hall, a man-at-arms cut his throat, even as Oswald 
used to cut the throats of swine, and he lies dead by 
the chapel-door/ 

‘ Misericordia ! (O mercy on us !) Go where we will, 
we shall never find so good a cook again ! ’ 

Although it seemed but doubtful where or when 
they should find material for another meal the afflicted 
community repeated the superior’s alacks and miseri- 
cordias ! mourning the loss of old Oswald as a man 
and as a Saxon, but still more as the best of cooks. 


c 


CHAPTER III 

THE GREAT HOUSE AT ELY 

Islands made by the sea, and yet more islands, inland, 
by rivers, lakes, and meres, have in many places ceased 
to be islands in everything save only in name. The 
changes are brought about by time and the fluctua¬ 
tions of nature, or by the industry and perseverance 
of man. 

We, the monks of Ely that now live (Henrico Secun- 
do regnante), have witnessed sundry great changes in 
the Fen Country, and more changes be now contem¬ 
plated ; in sort that in some future age, men may find 
it hard to conceive, from that which they see in their 
day, the manner of country the Fen country was 
when the Normans first came among us. Then, I 
wist, the Isle of Ely was to all intents an inland 
island, being surrounded on every side by lakes, meres 
and broad rivers, which became still broader in the 
season of rain, there being few artificial embankments 
to confine them, and few or no droves or cuts to carry 
off the increase of water towards the Wash and the 
sea. The isle had its name from Helig or Elig, a 
British name for the Willow, which grew in great 
abundance in every part of it, and which formed in 
many parts low but almost impenetrable forests, with 
marshes and quagmires under them, or within them. 
Within the compass of the waters, which marked the 

34 


THE GREAT HOUSE AT ELY 35 

limits of the country, and isolated it from the neigh¬ 
bouring countries—which also from south to north, 
for the length of well-nigh one hundred miles, and 
from east to west, for the breadth of well-nigh forty 
miles, were a succession of inland islands, formed like 
Ely itself—there were numerous meres, marshes, 
rivers, and brooks. The whole isle was almost a 
dead flat, with here and there an inconsiderable 
eminence standing up from it. These heights were 
often surrounded by water; and when the autumnal 
or the spring rains swelled the meres and streams, 
and covered the flats, they formed so many detached 
islets. Though surrounded and isolated, they were 
never covered by water; therefore it was upon these 
heights and knolls that men in all times had built 
their towns, and their churches and temples. Com¬ 
munications were kept up by means of boats, carricks, 
and skerries, and of flat-bottomed boats which could 
float in shallow water; and, save in the beds of the 
rivers, and in some of the meres, the waters were but 
shallow even in the season of rains. But if it was a 
miry, it was not altogether a hungry land. When the 
waters subsided, the greenest and richest pasture 
sprung up in many parts of the plain, and gave 
sustenance to innumerable herds. The alluvial soil 
was almost everywhere rich and productive ; and the 
patches which had been drained and secured re¬ 
warded the industry and ingenuity of the inhabitants 
with abundant crops. The Roman conquerors, with 
amazing difficulty, had driven one of their military 
roads through the heart of the country; but this 
noble causeway was an undeviating straight line, 
without any branches or cross roads springing from 
it; and it was so flanked in nearly its whole extent 
by meres, pools, rivers, rivulets, swamps, and willow 


36 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


forests, that a movement to the one side or the other 
was almost impracticable, unless the Romans, or those 
who succeeded the conquerors in the use of the cause¬ 
way, embarked in boats and travelled like the natives 
of the country. In all times it had been a land of 
refuge against invaders. In the days of Rome the 
ancient Britons rallied here, and made a good stand 
after all the rest of England had been subdued. Again, 
when Rome was falling fast to ruin, and the legions of 
the empire had left the Britons to take care of them¬ 
selves, that people assembled here in great numbers 
to resist the fierce Saxon invaders. Again, when the 
Saxons were assailed by the Danes and Norwegians, 
and the whole host of Scandinavian rovers and pirates, 
the indwellers of the Isle of Ely, after enjoying a long 
exemption from the havoc of war and invasion, defied 
the bloody Dane, and maintained a long contest with 
him; and now, as at earlier periods, and as at a later 
date, the isle of Ely became a place of refuge to many 
of the people of the upland country, and of other and 
more open parts of England, where it had not been 
found possible to resist the Danish battle-axes. The 
traditions of the ancient Britons had passed away 
with that unhappy and extinct race; but the whole 
fenny country was full of Saxon traditions, and stories 
of the days of trouble when war raged over the isle, 
and the fierce Danes found their way up the rivers, 
which opened upon the sea, into the very heart of the 
country. The saints and martyrs of the district were 
chiefly brave Saxons who had fought the Danes in 
many battles, and who had fallen at last under the 
swords of the unconverted heathen. The miracles 
that were wrought in the land of many waters were 
for the most part wrought at the tombs of these Saxon 
warriors. The legends of patriotism were blended 


THE GREAT HOUSE AT ELY 37 

with the legends and rites of religion. Every church 
had its patriot saint and martyr: in every religious 
house the monks related the prowess, and chanted 
daily requiems, and said frequent masses for the soul 
of some great Saxon warrior who had fallen in battle; 
or for some fair Saxon maid or matron, who had pre¬ 
ferred torture and death to a union with a pagan ; or 
for some Saxon queen or princess, who, long before the 
coming of the Danes, and at the first preaching of the 
Gospel among the Saxons by Saint Augustine and his 
blessed followers, had renounced a throne and all the 
grandeurs and pleasures of the world, and all her 
riches (reliciis forlunis omnibus /), to devote herself 
to the service of heaven, to found a monastery, and 
to be herself the first lady abbess of the monastery 
she founded. 

The foremost and most conspicuous of all the heights 
in this fen country was crowned by the abbey and 
conventual house of Ely, around which a large town, 
entirely governed by the Lord Abbat (or, in the Lord 
Abbat’s name, by the Cellarius of the abbey), had 
grown. The first conventual church was founded in 
the time of the Heptarchy, about the year of our Lord 
six hundred and seventy, by Saint Etheldreda, a queen, 
wife, virgin, and saint. Etheldreda was wife to King 
Egfrid, the greatest of the Saxon kings, and daughter 
of Anna, king of the East Angles, whose dominions 
included the Isle of Ely, and extended over the whole 
of Suffolk and Norfolk. This the first abbey church 
was built by Saint Wilfrid, bishop of York, who, with 
his sainted companion, Benedict, bishop of North¬ 
umberland, had travelled in far countries to learn 
their arts, and had brought from Rome into England 
painted glass, and glaziers, and masons, and all manner 
of artificers. When the church was finished, a mon- 


38 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


astery was built and attached to it by the same royal 
devotee. Neither the love of her husband nor any 
other consideration could make Etheldreda forego her 
fixed purpose of immuring herself in the cloisters. 
Many of her attached servants of both sexes, whom 
she had converted, followed her to Ely, and were pro¬ 
vided with separate and appropriate lodgings. Ethel¬ 
dreda was the first abbess of Ely; and after many 
years spent in the exercise of devotion, in fasting, 
penitence and prayer, she died with so strong an odour 
of sanctity that it could not be mistaken ; and she was 
canonised forthwith by the Pope at Rome. Some of 
her servants were beatified : one, the best and oldest 
of them all, Ovin, who was said to descend from the 
ancient Britons, and who had been minister to her 
husband the king, or to herself as queen, was canonised 
soon after his death. Huna, her chaplain, after assist¬ 
ing at her interment, retired to a small island in the 
Fens near Ely, where he spent the rest of his days as 
an anchorite, and died with the reputation of a saint. 
Many sick resorted to Huna’s grave and recovered 
health. Her sister Sexburga was the second abbess 
of Ely, and second only to herself in sanctity. She 
too was canonised; and so also were her successors the 
abbesses Ermenilda and Withburga. The bodies of all 
the four lay in the choir of the church. The house 
had had many good penmen, and yet it was said that 
they had failed to record all the miracles that had been 
wrought at these tombs. But the holiness of the place 
had not always secured it. In or about the year 870 
the unbelieving Danes, by ascending the Ouse, got 
unto Ely, slew all the monks and nuns, and plundered 
and destroyed the abbey. And after this, Saxon kings, 
no better than heathens, annexed all the lands and 
revenues of the house to the crown, to spend among 


THE GREAT HOUSE AT ELY 39 

courtiers and warriors the substance which Saint 
Ermenilda and the other benefactors of the abbey had 
destined to the support of peace-preaching monks, and 
to the sustenance of the poor. And thus fared it with 
the abbey of Ely, until the reign of the great and 
bountiful King Edgar, who in course of his reign 
founded or restored no fewer than fifty monasteries. 
In the year 970 this ever-to-be-revered king (Rex 
Venerandus) granted the whole of the island of Ely, 
with all its appurtenances, privileges, and immunities, 
to Ethelwald, bishop of Winchester, who rebuilt the 
church and the monastery, and provided them well 
with monks of the Benedictine order. The charter of 
Edgar, as was recorded by that king's scribe in the 
preamble to it, was granted ‘not privately and in a 
corner, but in the most public manner, and under the 
canopy of heaven.’ The charter was confirmed by 
other kings, and subsequently by the Pope. The great 
and converted Danish King Canute, who loved to glide 
along the waters of the river and listen to the monks 
of Ely singing in their choir, and who ofttimes visited 
the Lord Abbat, and feasted with him at the seasons 
of the great festivals of the Church, confirmed the 
charter; and the cartularies of the house contained like¬ 
wise the confirmation of King Edward the Confessor, 
now a saint and king in heaven (in ccelo sanctus et rex). 

Theoretical and fabulous are the tales of those who 
say that the Saxons had no majestic architecture; that 
their churches and abbeys and monasteries were built 
almost entirely of wood, without arches or columns, 
without aisles or cloisters; and that there was no 
grandeur or beauty in the edifices of England until 
after the Norman conquest. The abbey built at Ely 
in the tenth century by the Saxon bishop Ethelwald 
was a stately stone edifice, vast in its dimensions, and 


40 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


richly ornamented in its details. Round-headed arches 
rested upon rows of massive columns ; the roof of the 
church and the roof of the great hall of the abbey were 
arched and towering; and, high above all, a tower and 
steeple shot into the air, to serve as a landmark 
throughout the flat fenny country, and a guide to such 
as might lose themselves among the meres and the 
labyrinths of the willow forests. If the monks of Ely 
were lords of all the country and of all the people 
dwelling in it, those people and all honest wayfarers 
ever found the hospitable gates of the abbey open to 
receive them; and all comers were feasted, according 
to their several degrees, by the Lord Abbat, the prior, 
the cellarer, the hospitaller, the pietancer, or some 
other officer of the house. Twenty knights, with their 
twenty squires to carry arms and shield (anna ac scuta), 
did service to the Lord Abbat as his military retainers ; 
and in his great stables room was left for many more 
horses. The house had had many noble, hospitable, 
Saxon-hearted heads, but never one more munificent 
and magnificent than the Abbat Thurstan. He had 
been appointed to the dignity in the peaceful days of 
Edward the Confessor; but King Harold, on ascending 
the throne, had shown him many favours, and had 
given him the means of being still more generous. 
This last of our Saxon kings had begun his reign with 
great popularity, being accessible, affable, and cour¬ 
teous to all men, and displaying a great regard for 
piety and justice. In the Confessor s time, under the 
title of earl, he had ruled as a sovereign in Norfolk 
and Suffolk and part of Cambridge, and he was a 
native of East Anglia. He had been open-handed and 
open-hearted. From all these reasons the people of 
this part of England were singularly devoted to his 
cause, and so thoroughly devoted to his person that 


THE GREAT HOUSE AT ELY 41 

they would not for a very long time believe that he 
had perished in the battle of Hastings ; their hope and 
belief being that he had only been wounded, and would 
soon re-appear among them to lead them against the 
Norman. 

When Duke William had been crowned in West¬ 
minster Abbey, and when his constantly reinforced 
and increasing armies had spread over the country, 
many of the great Saxon heads of religious houses, 
even like the Abbot of Crowland, had sent in their 
submission, and had obtained the king’s peace, in the 
vain hope that thus they would be allowed to retain 
their places and dignities, and preserve their brethren 
from persecution, and the foundations over which they 
presided from the hands of foreign spoilers and intru¬ 
ders. Not so Thurstan, my Lord Abbat of Ely. He 
would not forget the many obligations he owed, and 
the friendship and fealty he had sworn, to the gener¬ 
ous, lion-hearted Harold ; and while the lands of other 
prelates and abbats lay open everywhere to the fierce 
Norman cavalry, and their hinds and serfs, their armed 
retainers and tenants, and all the people dwelling near 
them were without heart or hope, and impressed with 
the belief that the Normans were invincible, Thurstan, 
from the window of the hall, or from the top of the 
abbey tower, looked across a wide expanse of country 
which nature had made defensible ; and he knew that 
he was backed by a stout-hearted and devoted people, 
who would choke up the rivers with the dead bodies 
of the Normans, and with their own corpses, ere they 
would allow the invaders to reach the abbey of Ely 
and the shrine of Saint Etheldreda. Hence, Thurstan 
had been emboldened to give shelter to such English 
lords, and such persecuted Saxons of whatsoever de¬ 
gree, as fled from the oppression of the conquerors to 


42 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 

the isle of Ely. Thanes dispossessed of their lands, 
bishops deprived of their mitres, abbats driven from 
their monasteries to make room for foreigners, all 
flocked hither; and whether they brought much money 
or rich jewels with them, or whether they brought 
nothing at all, they all met with a hospitable reception; 
so large and English was the heart of Abbat Thurstan. 
When it was seen that William was breaking all the 
old and free Saxon institutions, and the mild and 
equitable laws of Edward the Confessor, which he had 
most solemnly sworn to preserve and maintain; that 
the promptest submission to the conqueror ensured no 
lasting safety to life or property; and that the Nor¬ 
mans, one and all, laity and clergy, knights and bishops, 
were proclaiming that all men of Saxon blood ought to 
be disseised of their property, and ought to be reduced 
to servitude and bondage, and were acting as if this 
system could soon be established, more and more fugi¬ 
tives came flying into the fen country. The town of 
Ely was roomy, but it was crowded; vast were the 
monastery, and hospitium, and dependencies, but they 
were crowded also: and far and near, on the dry hill¬ 
ocks, and in the green plains fenced from the waters, 
were seen huts and rude tents, and the blue smoke of 
many fires rising above the grey willows and alders. 

It were long to tell how many chiefs and nobles 
of fame, and how many churchmen of the highest 
dignity, assembled at dinner-time, and at supper-time, 
in my Lord Abbat’s great hall, where each had his 
seat according to his rank, and where the arms of 
every great chief were hung behind him on the wall, 
and where the banner of every chief and noble floated 
over his head, pendant from the groined roof. All 
the bravest and most faithful of the Saxon warriors 
who had survived the carnage of Hastings, and of the 


THE GREAT HOUSE AT ELY 43 


many battles which had been fought since that of 
Hastings, were here; and in the bodies of these men, 
scarred with the wounds inflicted by the Norman 
lances, flowed the most ancient and noble blood of 
England. They had been thanes and earls, and owners 
of vast estates, but now they nearly all depended for 
their bread on the Lord Abbat of Ely. Stigand, the 
dispossessed Saxon Primate of all England, was here ; 
Egelwin, the dispossessed Saxon Bishop of Durham, 
was here; Alexander, Bishop of Lincoln, was here; 
and on one side of Alexander sat the good Bishop of 
Lindisfarn, while on the other side of him the pious 
Bishop of Winchester ate the bread of dependence and 
sorrow. Among the chiefs of great religious houses 
were Eghelnoth, the Abbat of Glastonbury, and 
Frithric the most steadfast and most Saxon-hearted of 
all Lord Abbats. A very hard man, an unlettered, 
newly-emancipated serf, from one of the hungriest 
parts of Normandie or Maine, had taken possession of 
the great house at Glastonbury, and had caused the 
bodies of his predecessors, the abbats of English race, 
to be disinterred; and, gathering their bones together, 
he had cast them in one heap without the gates, as if, 
instead of being the bones of holy and beatified 
monks, they had been the bones of sheep, or oxen, or 
some unclean animals. Frithric of Saint Albans, who 
had been spiritual and temporal lord of one of the fair¬ 
est parts of England, of nearly all the woodland and 
meadow-land and corn-fields that lay between Saint 
Albans and Barnet on the one side, and between Luton 
and Saint Albans on the other side—Frithric, who had 
maintained one score and ten loaf-eaters or serving- 
men in his glorious abbey, had wandered alone and 
unattended through the wilds and the fens, begging 
his way and concealing himself from Norman pursuit 


44 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 

in the huts of the poorest men ; and he had brought 
nothing with him to Ely save two holy books which 
had comforted him on his long wayfaring, and which 
he carried under his arm. Every great house was 
w r anted by the conquerors for their unecclesiastical 
kindred; but Saint Albans was one of the greatest of 
them all, and Frithric had done that which the Normans 
and their duke w r ould never forgive. When, months 
after that great assize of God’s judgment in battle, the 
battle of Hastings (and after that the traitorous Saxon 
Witan, assembled in London, had sent a submissive 
deputation to William the Bastard at Berkhamstead to 
swear allegiance to him, and to put hostages into his 
hand), the Normans w r ere slaying the people, and 
plundering and burning the towns and villages, upon 
drawing nigh unto Saint Albans, they found their pas¬ 
sage stopped by a multitude of great trees which had 
been felled and laid across the road, and behind which 
—if there had not been traitors in London and false 
Saxons everywhere—there would have been posted 
expert archers, and valorous knights and hardy yeomen, 
and nathless every monk, novice, lay-brother, and hind 
of the abbey, in such sort that the invaders and their 
war-horses would never have gotten over those barri¬ 
cades of forest trees, nor have ever ascended the hill 
where the great saint and martyr Albanus suffered his 
martyrdom in the days of the Diocletian persecution, 
and where Offa the true Saxon king of Mercia erected 
the first church and the first great monastery for one 
hundred monks, that they might keep alive the 
memory of the just, and pray over his tomb seven 
times a-day. Wrathful was Duke William ; for, albeit 
none stood behind those ramparts of timber to smite 
him and his host, he could not win forward, nor enter 
the town, nor approach the abbey, until his men-at- 


THE GREAT HOUSE AT ELY 45 


arms and the followers of his camp should with long 
toil clear the road, and remove one after the other 
those stout barriers of forest trees. Red was he in 
the face as a burning coal when he summoned to his 
presence Frithric the Lord Abbat, and demanded 
whose work it was, and why these oaken barriers were 
raised in the jurisdiction of the monastery. Abbat 
Frithric, whose heart was stouter than his own oaks, 
looked, as became the free descendant of Saxon 
thanes and Danish princes, right into the eyes of 
the conqueror, and said unto him in a loud voice: 

‘ I have done the duty appertaining to my birth and 
calling; and if others of my rank and profession had 
performed the like, as they well could and ought, it 
had not been in thy power to penetrate into the land 
thus far! ’ 

We have said his voice was loud when he spoke to 
the conqueror: it was so loud that the hills re-echoed 
it, and that men heard it that were hid in the woods 
to watch what the Normans would do, and avoid their 
fury; and when the echoes of that true Saxon voice 
died away, the thick growing oaks seemed to speak, 
for there came voices from the woods on either side 
the road, shouting, ' Hail! all hail! Lord Frithric, our 
true Lord Abbat! If every Saxon lord had been true 
as he, Harold would now be king ! ’ 

Quoth Duke William, in an angered voice, 'Is the 
spirituality of England of such power ? If I may live 
and enjoy that which I have gotten, I will make their 
power less; and especially I mind to begin with thee, 
proud Abbat of St. Albans ! 

And how behaved Abbat Frithric when his domains 
w r ere seized, and ill-shaven foreign monks thrust into 
his house, and savage foreign soldiers ?—when, after 
that the conqueror had sworn upon all the relics of 


46 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


the church of St. Albans, and by the Holy Gospels,, 
to respect the abbey and all churches, and to preserve 
inviolate the good and ancient laws which had been 
established by the pious kings of England, and more 
especially by King Edward the Confessor, he allowed 
his Normans to kill the Saxon people without bot or 
compensation, plundered every church in the land, 
oppressed and despoiled all the abbeys, ploughed with 
ploughshares of red hot iron over the faces of all 
Saxons, and yet demanded from Frithric and his 
compeers a new oath of allegiance, and fuller securities 
for his obedience—what then did the Lord Abbat of 
Saint Albans ? He assembled all his monks and 
novices in the hall of the chapter, and taking a 
tender farewell of them, he said, f My brothers, my 
children, the time is come when, according to Scrip¬ 
ture, I must flee from city to city before the face of 
our persecutors —Fugiendum est a facie persequentium 
a civitate in civitatem .’ And rather than be forsworn, 
or desert the good cause, or witness without the power 
of remedying them the sulferings and humiliations 
and forcible expulsions of his monks, he went forth 
and became a wanderer as aforesaid, until he crossed 
the land of willows and many waters, and came unto 
Ely, a lone man, with nought but his missal and his 
breviary under his arm. Now the Abbat Frithric 
was old when these years of trouble began; and 
constant grief and toil, and the discomforts of his long 
journey on foot from the dry sunny hill of Saint 
Albans to the fens and morasses of Ely, had given 
many a rude shake to the hour-glass of his life. 
Since his arrival at Ely he had wasted away daily : 
every time that he appeared in the hall or refectory, 
he seemed more and more haggard and worn : most 
men saw that he was dying, but none saw it so clearly 


THE GREAT HOUSE AT ELY 47 

as himself. When the young and hopeful would say 
to him : 

f Lord Frithric, these evil days will pass away, the 
Saxons will get their own again, and thou wilt get 
back as a true Saxon to thine own abbey/ he would 
reply: 

‘ Young men, England will be England again, but 
not in my day; my next move is to the grave: Saint 
Albans is a heavenly place, but it is still upon earth, 
and, save the one hope that my country may revive, 
and that the laws and manners and the tongue of 
the Saxons may not utterly perish, my hopes are all 
in heaven! ’ 

Some of the best and wisest of those who had 
sought for refuge in the isle of Ely feared that when 
this bright guiding light should be put out, and other 
old patriots, like the Abbat Frithric, should take 
their departure, the spirit which animated this Saxon 
league would depart also, or gradually cool and 
decline. 


CHAPTER IV 


THE MONKS OF ELY FEAST 

It was on a wet evening in autumn, as the rain was 
descending in torrents upon swamps that seemed to 
have collected all the rains that had been falling 
since the departure of summer, and just as the monks 
of Ely were singing the Ave Maria (Dulce cantaverunt 
Monachi in Ely!) that Elfric, the whilom novice of 
Spalding, surrounded by some of the Lord Abbat’s 
people, and many of the town folk, who were all 
laughing and twitching at his cloak, arrived at the 
gate of the hospitium. Our Lord Abbat Frithric 
had brought with him two holy books. Elfric, our 
novice, had brought with him two grim Norman 
heads, for he had not been idle on the road, but had 
surprised and killed, on the borders of the fen country, 
first one man-at-arms, and then another; and the 
good folk of Ely were twitching at his mantle in 
order that they might see again the trophies which 
he carried under his broad sleeve. At his first coming 
to the well-guarded ford across the Ouse, the youth 
had made himself known. Was he not the youngest 
son of Goodman Hugh, who dwelt aforetime by Saint 
Ovin’s Cross, hard by the village of Haddenliam, and 
only a few bow-shot from the good town of Ely. And 
when the Saxons had seen the two savage Norman 
heads, and had looked in the youth’s face, the elders 

48 


THE MONKS OF ELY FEAST 49 

declared that he was the very effigies of the Goodman 
Hugh; and some of the younkers said that, albeit 
his crown was shorn, and his eye not so merry as it 
was, they recalled his face well, and eke the days 
when Elfric the son of Goodman Hugh played at 
bowls with them in the bowling-alley of Ely, and 
bobbed for eels with them in the river, and went 
out with them to snare wild water-fowl in the fens. 
Judge, therefore, if he met not with an hospitable 
reception from town and gown, from the good folk 
of Ely, and from all the monks ! 

So soon as Elfric had refreshed himself in the 
hospitium, he was called to the presence of Abbat 
Thurstan, and in truth to the presence of all the 
abbat’s noble and reverend guests, for Thurstan was 
seated in his great hall, where the servitors were 
preparing for the supper. Elfric would have taken 
his trophies with him, but the loaf-man who brought 
the message doubted whether the abbat would relish 
the sight of dead men’s heads close afore suppertime, 
and told him that his prowess was already known; 
and so Elfric proceeded without his trophies to the 
great hall, where he was welcomed by the noble 
company like another David that had slain two 
Goliaths. When he had told the story of Ivo Taille- 
Bois’s long persecution and night attack, and his 
own flight and journey, and had answered numerous 
questions put to him by the grave assembly, Abbat 
Thurstan asked him whether he knew what had 
happened at Spalding since his departure, and what 
had become of Father Adhelm and his monks, and 
what fate had befallen the good Abbat of Crowland. 

‘After my flight from the succursal cell,’ said the 
youth, ‘ I dwelt for a short season at Crowland, hidden 
in the township, or in Deeping-fen, whither also came 


D 


50 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


unto the abbey Father Adhelra and the rest of that 
brotherhood of Spalding; and there we learned how 
Ivo Taille-Bois had sent over to his own country to 
tell his kinsmen that he had to offer them a good 
house, convenient for a prior and five friars, ready 
built, ready furnished and well provided with lands 
and tenements ; and how these heretical and unsound 
Norman monks were hastening to cross the Channel 
and take possession of the succursal cell at Spalding. 
My Lord Abbat of Crowland, having what they call 
the king’s peace, and holding the letters of protection 
granted by Lanfranc-’ 

f They will protect no man of Saxon blood, and the 
priest or monk that accepts them deserves excom¬ 
munication,’ said Frithric, the Abbat of Saint Albans. 

1 Amen ! ’ said Elfric ; f but our Abbat of Crowland, 
relying upon these hollow and rotten reeds, laid his 
complaints before the king’s council at that time 
assembled near unto Peterborough, and sought redress 
and restitution. But the Normans sitting in council 
not only refused redress and absolved Taille-Bois, but 
also praised him for what he had done in the way of 
extortion, pillage, sacrilege, and murder ; and-’ 

‘ My once wise brother thy Abbat of Crowland 
ought to have known all this beforehand,’ said the 
Abbat of St. Albans; ‘ for do not these foreigners all 
support and cover one another, and form a close 
league, bearing one upon another, even as on the body 
of the old dragon scale is laid over scale ? ’ 

‘Sic est, my Lord Abbat,’ said the youth, bowing 
reverentially to the dignitary of the Church and the 
best of Saxon patriots, ' so is it, my lord ! and dragons 
and devils are these Normans all! Scarcely had the 
decision of the king’s council reached our house at 
Crowland, ere it was surrounded by armed men, and 




THE MONKS OF ELY FEAST 51 


burst open at the dead of night, as our poor cell at 
Spalding had been, and Father Adhelm and all those 
who had lived under his rule at Spalding, were driven 
out as disturbers of the king’s peace ! I should have 
come hither sooner, but those to whom my obedience 
was due begged me to tarry awhile. Now I am only 
the forerunner of Father Adhelm and his brethren, 
and of my Lord Abbat of Crowland himself; for the 
abbat can no longer bear the wrongs that are put upon 
him, and can see no hope upon earth, and no resting- 
place in broad England, except in the Camp of Refuge.’ 

( Another abbat an outcast and a wanderer ! This 
spacious house will be all too full of Saxon abbats and 
bishops; but I shall make room for this new comer,’ 
said Frithric of St. Albans to Egelwin, Bishop of 
Durham. 

Divers of the monks of Ely, and specialiter the 
chamberlain, who kept the accounts of the house, and 
the cellarer, who knew the daily drain made on the 
winebutts, looked blank at this announcement of more 
guests; but the bounteous and big-hearted Abbat of 
Ely said, ‘ Our brother of Crowland, and Father 
Adhelm of Spalding, shall be welcome here—yea, and 
all they may bring with them; but tell me, O youth, 
are they near at hand, or afar off in the wilderness ? ’ 

‘The feet of age travel not so fast as the feet of 
youth,’ said Elfric; ‘ age thinks, youth runs. I wot 
I was at Ramsey mere before they got to the Isle of 
Thorney, and crossed the Ouse before they came to 
the Nene, but as, by the blessing of the saints,’ and 
the youth might have said, in consequence of exercise 
and low living, ‘ Father Adhelm’s podagra hath left 
him, they can hardly fail of being here on the day of 
Saint Edmund, our blessed king and martyr, and that 
saint’s day is the next day after to-morrow.’ 


52 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


1 It shall be a feast-day/ said Thurstan ; ‘ for albeit 
Saint Edmund be not so great a saint as our own saint, 
Etheldreda, the founder of this house, and the monks 
of Saint Edmund-Bury (the loons have submitted to 
the Norman !) have more to do with his worship than 
we have, King Edmund is yet a great saint—a true 
Saxon saint, whose worship is old in the land; and it 
hath been the custom of this house to exercise hospi¬ 
tality on his festival. Therefore will we hold that 
day as we have been wont to hold it; and our brothers 
from Crowland and Spalding, who must be faring but 
badly in the fens, shall be welcomed with a feast.’ 

So bounteous and open-handed was the true Saxon 
Abbat of Ely. But the chamberlain set his worldly 
head to calculate the expense, and the cellarer mut¬ 
tered to himself, ‘ By Saint Withburga and her holy 
well, our cellars will soon be dry ! ’ 

On Saint Edmund’s eve, after evening service in the 
choir and after saying his prayers apart in the chapel 
of Saint Marie, Frithric, the Abbat of Saint Albans 
departed this life. His last words were, that England 
would be England still; and all those who heard the 
words and had English hearts believed that he was 
inspired, and that the spirit of prophecy spoke in his 
dying voice. The Abbat of Crowland was so near that 
he heard the passing-bell, as its sad sounds floated 
over the fens, telling all the faithful that might be 
there of their duty to put up a prayer for the dead. 
On Saint Edmund’s day the wayfarers from Crowland 
arrived, and that abbat took possession of the cell, and 
of the seat in the refectory which had been occupied 
by Frithric. Fitting place was also found for Father 
Adhelm, who had grown so thin upon the journey that 
even Elfric scarcely knew him again. The feast in the 
hall was as magnificent as any that had been given 


THE MONKS OF ELY FEAST 53 

there to King Canute, or even to any that had been 
given in the happy days of King Edward the Con¬ 
fessor ; and the appetites of the company assembled 
were worthy of the best times. Fish, flesh, and fowl, 
and pasties of venison—nothing was wanting. The 
patrimony of Saint Etheldreda, the lands and waters 
appertaining unto the abbey, and administered by the 
bountiful abbat, furnished the best portions of the 
feast. Were there in the world such eels and eel- 
pouts as were taken in the Ouse and Cam close under 
the walls of the abbey ? Three thousand eels, by 
ancient compact, do the monks of Ramsey pay every 
Lent unto the monks of Peterborough, for leave to 
quarry stone in a quarry appertaining to Peterborough 
Abbey; but the house of Ely might have paid ten 
times three thousand eels, and not have missed them, 
so plenty were they, and eke so good! The fame of 
these eels was known in far countries; be sure they 
were not wanting on this Saint Edmund’s day. The 
streams, too, abounded with pike, large and fit for 
roasting, with puddings in their bellies ; and the meres 
and stagnating waters swarmed with tench and carp, 
proper for stewing. Ten expert hinds attended to 
these fresh-water fisheries, and kept the abbat’s stews 
and the stews of the house constantly filled with fish. 
It is said by an ancient historian that here in the 
fenny country is such vast store of fish as astonishes 
strangers; for which the inhabitants laugh at them : 
nor is there less plenty of water-fowl; and for a 
single halfpenny five men may have enough of either, 
not only to stay their stomachs, but for a full meal! 
Judge, then, if my Lord Abbat was well provided. 
It was allowed on all sides that, for the Lenten 
season, and for all those fast-days of the Church 
when meat was not to be eaten, no community in the 


54 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


land was so well furnished as the monks of Ely; and 
that their fish-fasts were feasts. While the brethren 
of other houses grew thin in Quadragesima, the monks 
of Ely grew fat. Other communities might do well 
in roast meats and baked meats; but for a fish dinner 
—for a banquet in Lent—there was not in the land 
anything to compare with the dinners at Ely ! Nor 
was there lack of the fish that swim the salt sea, or 
of the shell-fish that are taken on the sea-coast, or of 
the finny tribe that come up the river to spawn ; the 
fishermen of Lynn were very devout to Saint Ethel- 
dreda, and made a good penny by supplying the 
monks; they ascended the Ouse witli the best of their 
sea-fish in their boats, and with every fish that was 
in season, or that they knew how to take. And so, 
at this late November festival, there were skates and 
plaice, sturgeon and porpoises, oysters and cockles 
spread upon my Lord Abbat’s table. Of the sheep 
and beeves we speak not; all men know the richness 
of the pasture that springs up from the annually 
inundated meadows, and the bounty of the nibbling 
crop that grows on the upland slopes with the wild 
thyme and the other savoury herbs that turn mutton 
into venison. Of the wild boars of the forest and fen 
only the liure or head was served up in this Aula 
Magna, the inferior parts being kept below for the use 
of the lay-brothers and hinds, or to be distributed by 
the hospitaller to the humbler degrees of pilgrims and 
strangers, or to be doled out to the poor of the town of 
Ely—for wot ye, when the Lord Abbat Thurstan 
feasted in Ely none fasted there : no ! not the poorest 
palmer that ever put cockle-shell in his cap or took the 
pilgrim’s staff in his hand to visit the blessed shrine of 
Saint Etheldreda! Of the wild buck, though less 
abundant in this fenny country than the boar, nought 


THE MONKS OF ELY FEAST 55 

was served up for my Lord Abbat and his own par¬ 
ticular guests except the tender succulent haunch ; the 
lay-brothers and the loaf-eaters of the house, and the 
poor pilgrims and the poor of the town, got all the rest. 
The fat fowls of Norfolk, the capons of Caen in Nor¬ 
mandie, and the pavoni or peacocks that first came from 
Italie a present from Legatus d latere of his holiness 
the Pope, were kept and fattened in my Lord Abbat’s 
farm-yard ; and well did his coquinarius know how to 
cook them ! To the wild-fowl there was no end, and 
Elfric, our bold novice, the son of Goodman Hugh, 
who dwelt by Saint Ovin’s Cross, hard by the village 
of Haddenham, and who had been a fen-fowler from 
his youth, could have told you how facile it was to en¬ 
snare the crane and the heron, the wild duck and teal, 
and the eccentric and most savoury snipe. Well we 
ween, before men cut down the covering woods, and 
drained the marshes, and brought too many people 
into the fens and too many great ships up the rivers, 
the whole land of Saint Etheldreda was like one great 
larder; and my Lord Abbat had only to say, f Go forth 
and take for me so many fowl, or fish, or boars/ and it 
was done. It is an antique and venerable proverb, 
that which sayeth good eating demands good drinking. 
The country of the fens was not productive of apple- 
trees, and the ale and beer that were drunk in the 
house, and the mead and idromel likewise, were brought 
from Norfolk and other neighbouring countries; but 
the abbat, and the officials, and the cloister monks 
drank better wine than apple-wine, better drink than 
mead or than pigment, for they drank of the juice of 
the generous vine, which Noah planted on the first dry 
hill-side he found. The monks of Glastonbury and 
Waltham, and of many other houses of the first reputa¬ 
tion, cultivated the grape on their own soil, where it 


56 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


seldom would ripen, and drank English grape-wine 
much too sour and poor. Not so our lordly monks of 
Ely ! They sent the shipmen of Lynn to the Elbe, and 
to the Rhine, and to the Mosel, to bring them more 
generous drink; and they sent them to the south even 
so far as Gascony and Espaing for the ruby wine ex¬ 
pressed from the grapes which grow in the sunniest 
clime. In the good times four keels, two from the 
German Ocean and two from the Gulf of Biscaye, steered 
every year through the sand-banks of the Wash to 
Lynn, and from Lynn up the Ouse even unto Ely, 
where the tuns were landed and deposited in the 
cellars of the abbey, under the charge of the sub¬ 
cellarer, a lay-brother from foreign parts, who had been 
a vintner in his youth. And in this wise it came to be 
a passant saying with men who would describe any¬ 
thing that was super-excellent, f It is as good as the 
wine of the monks of Ely ! ’ Maugre the cellarer’s 
calculation of quantities, the best wine my Lord Abbat 
had in hand was liberally circulated at the feast in 
silver cups and in gold-mounted horns. Thus were the 
drinks equal to the viands, as well in quantity as in 
quality; and if great was the skill of the vintner, 
great also was the skill of the cook. In other houses 
of religion, and in houses, too, of no mean fame, the 
monks had often to lament that their coquinarius fed 
them over long on the same sort of dishes; but it was 
not so with our monks of Ely, who possessed a cook 
that had the art of giving variety to the selfsame 
viands, and who also possessed lands, woods, and waters 
that furnished the most varied materials for the cook 
to try his skill upon. 

As Father Adhelm finished his last slice of porpoise, 
curiously condimented with Eastern spices, as fragrant 
to the nose as they were savoury to the palate, he lifted 


THE MONKS OF ELY FEAST 57 

up his eyes towards the painted ceiling, and said, f I 
did not hope, after the death of Oswald our cook at 
Spalding, to eat of so perfect a dish on this side the 
grave! ’ 

Flowers there were none to strew upon the floor; 
but the floor of the hall was thickly strewed with sweet¬ 
smelling hay, and with the rushes that grow in the 
fens; and the feet of the loaf-men of the abbat and of 
the other servitors that waited on the lordly company 
made no noise as they hurried to and fro with the 
dishes and the wine-cups and drinking horns. While 
dinner lasted, nought was heard but the voice of the 
abbat’s chaplain, who read the Psalms in a corner of 
the hall, the rattle of trenchers and knives, and, time- 
ously, such ejaculations as these : ‘ How good this fish ! 
how good this flesh ! how good this fowl! how fine this 
pastry ! how rich this wine ! * 

But when the tables were cleared, and grace after 
meat had been said, and my Lord Abbat’s cupbearer 
had filled the cup of every guest with bright old 
Rhenish, Thurstan stood up at the head of the table, 
and said, ‘ Now drink we round to the health of Eng¬ 
land’s true king, and this house’s best friend, the 
Saxon-hearted Harold, be he where he will! And 
may he soon come back again ! Cups off at a draught, 
while we drink Health to King Harold ! ’ 

c We drink his health, and he is dead—we wish him 
back, and he is lying in his coffin in the church of the 
Abbey of Waltham, safe in the keeping of the monks 
of Waltham ! The wine is good, but the toast is foolish.’ 

Thus spake the envious prior to the small-hearted 
cellarer. But the rest of the goodly company drank 
the wassail with joy and exultation, and seemingly with¬ 
out any doubt that Harold was living and would return. 
In their minds it was the foul invention of the enemy 


58 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


—to divide and discourage the English people—which 
made King Harold die at Hastings. Who had seen 
him fall ? Who had counted and examined that noble 
throng of warriors that retreated towards the sea-coast 
when the battle was lost by foul treachery, and that 
found boats and ships, and sailed away for some foreign 
land ? Was not Harold in that throng, wounded, but 
with no deadly wound ? Was it not known throughout 
the land that the Normans, when they counted the 
slain, not being able to find the body of Harold, sent 
some of our Saxon slaves and traitors to seek for it— 
to seek but not to find it ? Was it not a mouldering 
and a mutilated corpse that the Normans caused to be 
conveyed to Waltham, and to be there entombed, at 
the east end of the choir, as the body of King Harold ? 
And did not the monks of Waltham close up the grave 
with brick-work, and inscribe the slab. Hie jacet 
Harold infelix, without ever seeing who or what was 
in the coffin ? So reasoned all of this good company, 
who loved the liberties of England, and who had need 
of the sustaining hope that the brave Harold w r as alive, 
and would come back again. 

Other wassails followed fast one upon the other. 
They were all to the healths of those who had stood 
out manfully against the invader, or had preferred exile 
in the fens, and poverty in the Camp of Refuge, to sub¬ 
mission to the conqueror. 

‘ Not less than a brimming cup can w r e drink to the 
last arrived of our guests, our brother the Lord Abbat 
of Crowland, and our brother the prior of Spalding/ 
said Thurstan, filling his own silver cup with his own 
hand until the Rhenish ran over upon the thirsty 
rushes at his feet. 

' Might I be allowed/ said Father Adhelm at a later 
part of the feast, ‘ might my Lord Abbat vouchsafe me 


THE MONKS OF ELY FEAST 59 

leave to call a wassail for an humble and unconsecrated 
member of the Saxon church—who is nevertheless a 
child of Saint Etheldreda, and a vassal of my Lord 
Abbat, being native to this place—I would just drink 
one quarter of a cup, or it might be one half, to Elfric 
the Novice, for he travelled for our poor succursal cell 
when we were in the greatest perils; he carried my 
missives and my messages through fire and water; he 
forewarned us of our last danger and extremity; and 
albeit he had not our order for the deed, and is there¬ 
by liable to a penance for disobedience—he slew with 
his arrow Ivo Taille-Bois’s man-at-arms that had 
savagely slain good Wybert our wheelwright/ 

( Ay/ said Thurstan, ‘ and he came hither across the 
fens as merry as David dancing before the ark; and 
he brought with him the heads of two Norman thieves, 
who with their fellows had been murdering our serfs, 
and trying to find an opening that should lead them 
to the Camp of Refuge ! Father Adhelm, I would 
have named thy youth in time ; but as thou hast 
named him, let us drink his name and health even 
now ! And let the draught be one half cup at least:— 
“ Elfric the novice of Spalding ! ” ’ 

'This is unbecoming our dignity, and the dignity 
of our house : next we shall waste our wine in drink¬ 
ing wassail to our loaf-eaters and swineherds/ muttered 
the cellarer to the prior. 

But while the cellarer muttered and looked askance, 
his heart not being Saxon or put in the right place, 
the noblest English lords that were there, and the 
highest dignitaries of the Church, the archbishop and 
the bishops, the lord abbats, and the priors of houses, 
that were so high that even the priors were styled 
Lords, Dotnmi, and wore mitres, stood on their feet, 
and with their wine-cups raised high in their hands, 


60 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 

shouted as in one voice, ‘ Elfric the novice ’; and all 
the obedientiarii or officials of the Abbey of Ely that 
were of rank enow to be bidden to my Lord Abbat’s 
table, stood up in like manner and shouted, f Elfric 
the novice ! ’ and, when the loud cheering was over, 
off went the wine, and down to the ringing board the 
empty silver cups and the golden-bound horns. He 
who had looked into those cups and horns might have 
smiled at Father Adhelm’s halves and quarters : they 
were nearly all filled to the brim; yet when they had 
quitted the lip and were put down upon the table, 
there was scarcely a heel-tap to be found except in the 
cup of the cellarer and in that of the envious prior of 
Ely. So strong were the heads and stomachs of our 
Saxon ancestors before the Normans came among us 
and brought with them all manner of people from the 
south with all manner of effeminacies. 

Judge ye if Elfric was a proud man that day ! At 
wassail-time the wide doors of the Aula Magna were 
thrown wide open; and harpers, and meni-singers, 
and men that played upon the trumpet, the horn, the 
flute, the pipe and tabor, the cymbal and the drum, or 
that touched the strings of the viola, assembled out¬ 
side, making good music with instrument and voice ; 
and all that dwelt within the precincts of the abbey, 
or that were lodged for the nonce in the guest-house, 
came, as they chose, to the threshold of the hall, and 
saw and heard what was doing and saying inside and 
what outside. Now Elfric was there, with palmers 
and novices trooping all around him, and repeating 
(albeit dry-mouthed and without cups or horns to 
flourish) the wassail of the lords and prelates, £ Elfric 
the novice! ’ If at that moment my Lord Abbat 
Thurstan or Father Adhelm had bidden the youth go 
and drive the Normans from the strong stone-keep of 


THE MONKS OF ELY FEAST 6l 

their doubly-moated and trebly-walled castle by Cam- 
Bridge, Elfric would have gone and have tried to do it. 
He no longer trod upon base earth, his head struck 
the stars, as the poets say. 

I he abbat s feast, which began at one hour before 
noon, did not end until the hour of Ave Maria; nay, 
even then it was not finished, but only suspended for 
a short season by the evening service in the choir; 
for, after one hour of the night, the refectoriarius, or 
controller of the refectory, re-appeared in the hall 
with waxen torches and bright lanterns, and his 
servitors spread the table for supper. 

As Abbat Thurstan returned to the refectory, lead¬ 
ing by the hand his guest the Abbat of Crowland, 
that dispossessed prelate said to his host, c To-night for 
finishing the feast; to-morrow morning for counsel/ 
f Ay/ responded Thurstan, f to-morrow we will 
hold a chapter—our business can brook no further 
delay—our scouts and intelligencers bring us bad 
news—King Harold comes not, nor sends—the Camp 
of Refuge needs a head—our warriors want a leader 
of fame and experience, and one that will be true to 
the Saxon cause, and fearless. Woe the while ! where 
so many Saxons of fame have proved traitors, and 
have touched the mailed hand of the son of the harlot 
of Falaise in friendship and submission, and have 
accepted as the gift of the butcher of Hastings the 
lands and honours which they held from their ances¬ 
tors and the best of Saxon kings—where, I say, may 
we look for such a Saxon patriot and liberator ? O 
Harold ! my lord and king, why tarriest thou ? Holy 
Etheldreda, bring him back to thy shrine, and to the 
Camp of Refuge, which will cease to be a refuge for 
thy servants if Harold cometh not soon ! But courage, 
my Lord of Crowland ! The Philistines are not upon 


62 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


us; our rivers and ditches and marshes and meres 
are not yet drained, and no Saxon in these parts will 
prove so accursed a traitor as to give the Normans 
the clue to our labyrinths. The saint hath provided 
another joyous meal for us. Let us be grateful and 
gay to-night; let us sup well and strongly, that we 
may be invigorated and made fit to take strong and 
wise counsel in the morning/ 

And heartily did the monks of Ely and their guests 
renew and finish their feast, and hopefully and boldly 
did they speak of wars and victories over the Normans, 
until the drowsiness of much wine overcame them, 
and the sub-chamberlain of the house began to extin¬ 
guish the lights, and collect together the torches and 
the lanterns, while the cellarer collected all the spoons, 
taking care to carry the Lord Abbat’s spoon in his 
right hand, and the spoons of the monks in his left 
hand, according to the statutes of the order. It was 
the last time that the feast of Saint Edmund the 
Martyr was kept in the true Saxon manner in the 
great house at Ely. The next year, and the year 
following that, the monks had little wine and but 
little ale to drink; and after the long years of trouble, 
although the cellars were getting filled again, the true 
old Saxon brotherhood was broken up and mixed, a 
foreigner was seated in the place of Abbat Thurstan, 
and monks with mis-shaven tonsures and mis-shaped 
hoods and gowns filled all the superior offices of the 
abbey, purloining and sending beyond sea what my 
Lord Thurstan had spent in a generous hospitality, 
among true-born and generous-hearted Englishmen. 
But in this nether world even the gifts of saints and 
the chartered donation of many kings are to be kept 
only by the brave and the united: conquest recognises 
no right except as a mockery: the conquered must 


THE MONKS OF ELY FEAST 63 


not expect to be allowed to call their life and limbs 
their own, or the air they breathe their own, or their 
wives and children their own, or their souls their 
own: they have no property but in the grave, no right 
but to die at the hour appointed for them. Therefore 
let men perish in battle rather than outlive subjuga¬ 
tion, and look for mercy from conquerors ! and, there¬ 
fore, let all the nations of the earth be warned by the 
fate of the Anglo-Saxons to be always one-hearted 
for their country. 



CHAPTER V 

THE MONKS OF ELY TAKE COUNSEL 

At as early an hour as the church services and de¬ 
votional exercises would allow, Thurstan opened a 
chapter in the chapter-house, which stood on the 
north side, hard by the chief gate of the church. As 
his lordship entered, he said—the words that were 
appointed to be said on such occasions— f May the 
souls of all the deceased brethren of this house, and 
the souls of all true believers, rest in peace ! ’ And 
the convent replied, ‘ Amen ! ’ Then the Lord Abbat 
spoke again, and said, ‘ Benedicite] and the convent 
bowed their heads. And next he said, ‘ Oh Lord ! in 
Thy name ! ’ and then, ‘ Let us speak of the order.’ 
And hereupon all present crossed themselves, and 
bent their heads on their breasts, and the business of 
the chapter commenced. Only the prior, the sub¬ 
prior, the cellarer or bursar, the sacrist, and sub¬ 
sacrist, the chamberlain or treasurer, and the other 
chief officials or obedieutiarii, and the other cloistered 
monks, maturi fratres , whose noviciate had been long 
passed, and whose monastic vows had been all com¬ 
pleted, had the right of being present in chapter, and 
of deliberating and voting upon the business of the 
house and order. All that passed in chapter was, in 
a manner, sub sigillo confessiotiis , and not to be dis¬ 
closed by any deliberating member to the rest of the 

64 


THE MONKS OF ELY TAKE COUNSEL 65 

convent, or to any of them, and much less was it to 
be revealed to any layman, or to any man beyond the 
precincts of the abbey. In these consultations, on 
the day next after the festival of Saint Edmunds, the 
monks of Ely sat long with closed doors. When they 
came forth of the chapter-house it was noticed that 
the face of the Lord Abbat was very red, and that 
the faces of the prior and cellarer were very pale. 
A lay-brother, who had been working on the top of 
the chapter-house outside, repairing some chinks in 
the roof, whispered to his familiars that he had heard 
very high words passing below, and that he had dis¬ 
tinctly heard my Lord Abbat say, f Since the day 
of my election and investiture no brother of this 
house has been loaded with chains, and thrown into 
the underground dungeon; but, by the shrine of 
Saint Etheldreda, were I to find one traitor among 
us, I would bind him and chain him, and leave him 
to rot! And were there two of our brotherhood un¬ 
faithful to the good cause, and to King Harold, and 
plotting to betray the last hopes of England and this 
goodly house, and its tombs and shrines and blessed 
relics, to the Norman, I would do what hath been 
done aforetime in this abbey—I would bury them 
alive, or build them up in the niches left in our deep 
foundation walls! ’ 

Now the gossips of the house, making much out of 
little, went about the cloisters whispering to one 
another that some sudden danger was at hand, and 
that my Lord Abbat suspected the prior and the 
cellarer of some secret correspondence with the Nor¬ 
man knights that garrisoned Duke William’s castle 
near unto Cam-Bridge. 

If it be so,’ said Elfric, the novice from Spalding, 

‘ I would advise every true Saxon monk, novice, and 


E 


66 THE CAMP OF REFUGE 

lay-brother, to keep their eyes upon the cellarer and 
the prior! * 

‘ That shall be done/ said an old lay-brother. 

f Ay, we will all watch their out-goings and their 
comings-in/ said several of the gossips; ‘ for the prior 
is a hard-dealing, peremptory man, and cunning and 
crafty at the same time, never looking one in the face ; 
and ever since last pasque the cellarer hath shown an 
evil habit of stinting us underlings and loaf-eaters in 
our meat and drink/ 

‘ He hath ever been given too little to drink him¬ 
self to be a true Saxon/ said another; ‘ we will watch 
him well ! ’ 

And they all said that they would watch the cellarer 
and eke the prior; that they would for ever love, 
honour, and obey Thurstan their good and bountiful 
Lord Abbat; and that they would all die with swords 
or spears in their hands rather than see the Normans 
enter the Camp of Refuge. So one-hearted was the 
community at this time. 

Shortly after finishing the chapter in the usual 
manner, and coming out with his chaplains, singing 
Verba Mea, Lord Thurstan went into his own hall, 
and there assembled all the high and noble guests 
of the house, whether laics, or priests, or monks, and 
all the obedientiarii and cloistered brothers of the 
abbey, except the prior and the cellarer, who had 
gone to their several cells with faces yet paler than 
they were when they came forth from the chapter- 
house. In my Lord Abbat’s hall no business was 
discussed that appertained exclusively to the house or 
order : the deliberations all turned upon the general 
interests of the country, or upon the means of prolong¬ 
ing the struggle for national independence. 

Thurstan, after reminding the assembly that the 


THE MONKS OF ELY TAKE COUNSEL 67 

Saxon heroes of the Camp of Refuge had foiled the 
Normans in two attempts they had made to penetrate 
into the Isle of Ely—the one in the summer of the 
present year, and the other in the summer of the 
preceding year, 1069—and that it was four good 
years since the Battle of Hastings, which William 
the Norman had bruited on the Continent as a 
victory which had given him possession of all Eng¬ 
land, frankly made it known to all present that he 
had certain intelligence that the Normans were 
making vast preparations at Cam-Bridge, at Bury, 
at Stamford, at Huntingdon, and even at Brunn, in 
order to invade the whole fenny country, and to 
press upon the Isle of Ely and the Camp of Refuge 
from many opposite quarters. My Lord Abbat further 
made it known that the duke had called to this service 
all his bravest and most expert captains, and a body 
of troops that had been trained to war in Brittanie 
and in other parts wherein there were fens and rivers 
and meres, and thick-growing forests of willow and 
alder, even as in the country of East Anglia. He also 
told them how Duke William had sworn by the splen¬ 
dour of God’s face that another year should not pass 
without seeing the Abbey of Ely in flames, the Camp 
of Refuge broken into and scattered, the rule of the 
Normans established over the whole land, and the 
refractory Saxons exterminated. 

f Now,’ said my Lord Abbat, f it behoves us to devise 
how we shall withstand this storm, and to select some 
fitting and experienced captain that shall have author¬ 
ity over all the fighting men of our league, and that 
shall be able to measure swords with these vaunted 
leaders from foreign parts. Our brave Saxon chiefs 
in the camp, or in this house, and now present among 
us, are weary of their jealousies of one another, and 


68 THE CAMP OF REFUGE 

have wisely agreed to obey, one and all, one single 
leader of experience and fame and good fortune, if 
such a leader can anywhere be found, having a true 
Saxon heart within him, and being one that hath 
never submitted to or negotiated with the invader. 
Let us then cast about and try and find such a chief. 
Let every one speak his mind freely, and then we 
can compare and choose.’ 

Some named one chief, and some another: many 
brave and expert men were named successively and 
with much applause, and with many expressions of 
hope and confidence; but when Father Adhelm, the 
expelled prior of the succursal cell at Spalding, stood 
up in his turn, and with the briefest preamble named 
Hereward, the son of Leofric, the late Lord of Brunn, 
Here ward the truest of Saxons, the other chiefs seemed 
to be all forgotten, even by those who had severally 
proposed them, and the assembly listened in silence, 
or with a silence interrupted only by shouts of triumph, 
while this good prior and whilom neighbour of Here¬ 
ward related the chief events of that warrior’s life, 
and pointed out the hereditary and personal claims 
he had to the consideration of his countrymen. Ever 
since the earliest days in which the Saxons gained a 
footing on the land, the Lords of Brunn, the ancestors 
of Hereward, had been famed for their valour in the 
field, famed for their prudence in the Witan and in 
all other councils, had been famed above all their 
neighbours for their hospitality! And when the 
Saxons embraced the Gospel as preached by Saint 
Augustine and his disciples, who had been so devout 
as the Lords of Brunn ? who so bountiful to the 
shrines of saints and religious houses ? who so ready 
to fight unto death in defence of the Church ? Notable 
it was, and known unto all that dwelt in the land of 


THE MONKS OF ELY TAKE COUNSEL 69 

fens, that the house of Crowland, and the house of 
Ely, and the shrine of Saint Etheldreda, had been 
served in the hour of need by many of Here ward’s 
forefathers. When the unconverted, heathenish Danes 
were ravaging the country, and burning all the monas¬ 
teries, and tethering their horses in the chapels of 
royal palaces, one Lord of Brunn fought in the ranks 
by the side of Friar Tolli, from sunrise to sunset, for 
the defence of the Abbey of Crowland, nor ceased 
fighting until three of the Danish sea-kings had been 
slain, and the monks had had time to remove their 
relics, and their books, and their sacred vases, into 
the impenetrable marshes of that vicinity. Another 
Lord of Brunn, who at the call of the monks had 
marched across the fens with all his people, and with 
all his family that could wield a sword, had perished 
close under the walls of Ely Abbey, after defeating 
the pagans, and driving them back towards their 
ships. The blood of each of these Lords of Brunn 
ran in the veins of Here ward, and his deeds had 
proved him worthy of the blood. In his youth—in 
the days of Edward the Confessor—when the cunning 
Normans were beginning to beset the court of the 
childless king, and to act as if the inheritance was 
already their own, and the people of England already 
their slaves, it chanced that our Hereward, who had 
been on a pilgrimage to Canterbury, came back to the 
sea by Dover, and found Count Eustace of Boulogne, 
and his French men-at-arms engaged in a fierce quarrel 
with the men of Dover, and galloping through the 
streets with their naked swords in their hands, striking 
men and women, and crushing divers children under 
their horses’ hoofs. Hereward, though but a stripling, 
drew his blade, rallied the dull townsfolk, who before 
had no leader (and so were fighting loosely and with- 


70 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


out order, and without any science of war), and renew¬ 
ing the battle at a vantage, he slew with his own 
hand a French knight: and then the men of Dover 
slew nineteen of the strangers, wounded many more, 
and drove Count Eustace and the rest out of the town 
to fly in dismay back to King Edward. Later, when 
Harold, as earl of the eastern counties, and chief of 
King Edward’s armies, marched into Wales to curb 
the insolent rage of King Griffith, Here ward attended 
him, and fought with him among the mountains and 
glens, and lakes and morasses of Wales, until that 
country was reduced by many victories, and Harold 
took shipping to return to King Edward with the head 
of Griffith stuck upon the rostrum or beak of his 
galley. Later still, when Here ward was of manly age, 
and King Edward the Confessor was dead, having 
bequeathed his crown to Harold, and Harold as our 
true king raised his banner of war to march against 
his own unnatural brother Earl Tostig, who had 
brought the King of Norway and a great army of 
Norwegians into the country of York to deprive him 
of his throne or dismember his kingdom, Hereward 
marched with him with many of his father’s stout 
men of Brunn, and fought under Harold’s eye in the 
great battle at Stamford Bridge—that battle which 
ceased not until Earl Tostig and the King of Norway 
were both slain, and the river was choked up with 
the Norwegian dead. From Stamford Bridge the 
march of bold Harold was to Hastings, for the 
Normans had landed while he had been vanquishing 
the Norwegians. On that long and rapid march, when 
hundreds of tried soldiers lagged behind, Hereward 
kept pace with his royal master; and when the battle 
was arrayed he was seen riding by Harold’s side; and 
when the battle joined, his battle-axe was seen close 


THE MONKS OF ELY TAKE COUNSEL 71 

by the battle-axes of Harold and the king’s two loyal 
and brave brothers, Gurth and Leofwin, dealing 
terrible blows, and cutting the steel caps and the 
coats of mail of the Normans like chaff. Saxons, 
remember that he fought at Hastings through 
nine long hours, and did not yield until ye saw that 
ye were betrayed ! Separated from his king in the 
fury of the last melee , Hereward attempted to rally 
the East Angles and the men of Kent; and failing in 
that, and hearing a mighty rumour that Harold the 
king was slain, he galloped to the port of Winchelsey 
with a few of his father’s trusty people, and there 
embarked for foreign parts, vowing that he would 
never bow his head to the conqueror. The father of 
Hereward, being old and infirm, and infected by the 
unmanly fears which made so many Saxons throw 
aside the sword before the conquest of England was 
well begun, had made haste to tender his allegiance 
to the son of the harlot, had obtained his peace, and 
had been allowed to retain his lordship of Brunn, after 
paying sundry fines for his son’s patriotism. But 
latterly the old Lord of Brunn had been gathered to 
his fathers, and a Norman chief had seized his manor- 
house and all his lands, and was now keeping them as 
his patrimony. 

Such, being told briefly, was the story which Father 
Adhelm told to my Lord Abbat of Ely and his 
guests and officials; and when he had done, he 
asked, where could a better chief be found for the 
Camp of Refuge than Hereward the true Saxon, and 
legitimate Lord of Brunn ? And, hereupon, there 
was a clapping of hands and shouting of voices in all 
that noble and devout assembly—a shouting so loud 
that it echoed through all the abbey, and was heard 
as far off as Saint Ovin’s Cross; and the indwellers of 


7 C 2 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


the town of Ely, albeit they knew not what it meant, 
took up the cry, and shouted, ‘ Hereward to the Camp 
of Refuge ! Hereward for England ! ’ 

‘ Bethinks me/ said the cautelous Abbat of Crow- 
land, when the noise had ceased, ‘that perchance 
Hereward will not come to us at our summons. He 
must know how false our country has proved to her¬ 
self, and how great the progress the conqueror hath 
made in it: his lands and all his inheritance are gone, 
a price is set upon his head in England, and his valour 
and experience in war, and his other good qualities, 
have made for him a prosperous and honourable home 
in a foreign land. While yet in my poor house at 
Crowland, a shipman from the Wash, who trades to 
the opposite coast, told me that he had lately seen at 
Ypres my Lord Hereward, living in great affluence 
and fame; and the mariner further told me that 
Hereward had said to him that he would never wend 
back to a land of cowards and traitors; that he had 
carved himself out new estates in the fattest lands of 
the Netherlands, and that England had nothing to 
give him except dishonour or a grave.’ 

These representations damped the hopes of some of 
the company ; but as Hereward’s mind could not be 
known without a trial, it was determined to send 
some trusty messenger across the seas, who might 
gain access to the presence of the chief, and at the 
same time purchase and bring back with him a supply 
of arms and warlike harness, with other things much 
needed in the Camp of Refuge. The difficulties of 
this embassage struck all that were present : 

‘And who/ said the Lord Abbat, ‘shall be this 
trusty and expert messenger ? ’ 

‘ Were it not for the greenness of his years and the 
lowliness of his condition/ said the Prior of Spalding, 


THE MONKS OF ELY TAKE COUNSEL 7 3 

‘ I would even venture to recommend for the mission 
my bold-hearted, cl ear-head ed, and nimble-footed 
novice, Elfric.’ 

‘ Brother, thou hast said it,’ responded Thurstan; 
e thy novice shall go ! Let the youth be summoned 
hither.’ 

The novice was soon kneeling at my Lord Abbat’s 
feet, and was soon made acquainted as well with the 
difficult task he was expected to perform, as with the 
uncomfortable doubts which had been propounded by 
the Abbat of Crowland. When asked by his own 
immediate superior, Father Adhelm, whether he would 
undertake the task, he answered : 

‘ Marry, and that I will right gladly. When I first 
went to Spalding, I knew well Hereward, the son of 
the Lord of Brunn, and some of those that were 
nearest to him. If England is to be saved, he is the 
man that will save it. I would go to the world’s end 
to find him and bring him hither. I love my country, 
and I love travelling better than my meat and drink. 
I have ofttimes prayed to Saint Ovin that he would 
vouchsafe me the grace of going into foreign parts! 
Moreover, my prime duty is obedience to my superiors. 
Let me depart instantly, and I will the sooner bring 
you back Lord Hereward ! ’ 

‘ Thou art very confident,’ said the Abbat of Crow- 
land ; ‘how knowest thou that Hereward will come 
with thee ? ’ 

‘ My lord and master,’ said the novice, ‘ I ween I 
can take over with me a word of command, or 
a prayer more potential than a command, and one 
which Hereward could not withstand even if he 
were king of all the Netherlands country, and sure 
death stood upon the English beach to seize him on 
return! ’ 


74 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


What does this young man mean ? ’ said the Abbat 
of Crowland. 

Elfric blushed, stammered, and could not go on. 

( What dost thou mean ? * said his Prior of Spalding. 

Elfric stammered more than before, which angered 
his superior, and brought down some harsh words 
upon his head. 

f Nay/ said the good old Bishop of Lindisfarn, 
‘ chide not the young man, but give him time to col¬ 
lect his thought and frame his speech. He may know 
more of Lord Hereward than any one here knoweth. 
But . . . but I hope that this novice of a goodly 
house doth not think of employing any witchcraft or 
unlawful spell! De maleficio libera nos! From witch¬ 
craft and sacrilege, and all the arts of the devil, good 
Lord, deliver us ! ’ 

The bishop crossed himself; they all crossed them¬ 
selves ; and Elfric not only crossed himself, but like¬ 
wise said ‘ Libera nos ! ’ and f Amen ! ’ But when he 
had so done and so said, his merry eye twinkled, and 
there was as much of a smile about his mouth as 
the reverence due to the company allowed of in a 
novice. 

f If there be magic/ said he, f it is all white magic ; 
if there be a spell, it is not an unholy spell.’ 

And as Elfric said these words he looked into the 
good-natured, right hearty, and right English face of 
my Lord Abbat Thurstan. 

‘ Speak on, boy/ said the abbat; ‘ speak out, my 
brave boy, and fear nought! ’ 

Being thus heartened, Elfric said : 

f Then, to speak with reverence before this noble 
and reverend company, I wot well there were, when I 
was first at Spalding, and when my Lord Hereward 
was at Brunn, certain love-passages-’ 



THE MONKS OF ELY TAKE COUNSEL 75 

f Certain what ? ’ said the expelled Abbot of Cocker- 
mouth, who was somewhat deaf. 

e Love-passages,’ said Elfric, looking very archly, 
and with a laugh in his eyes, if not on his lips ; 
f certain love-passages between the son of the Lord of 
Brunn and the noble maiden Alftrude, the young 
daughter and heiress to the lord of the neighbouring 
town, that old Saxon lord, Albert of Ey.’ 

‘Truth, the two houses stood not very far apart,’ 
said the Abbat of Crowland; ‘but Albert of Ey was 
no friend to the old Lord of Brunn.’ 

‘ Most true, my lord; but Albert died before his 
neighbour, and left his wide estates to his fair daughter 
Alftrude, having first given her in ward to this Lan- 
franc, who is by some called Archbishop of Canterbury, 
and whose will and power few can gainsay. More¬ 
over, the Ladie Alftrude is cousin to the Ladie Lucia, 
whom Ivo Taille-Bois hath made his wife; and as that 
arch-enemy of our house extends his protection to his 
wife’s cousin, not wishing that her lands should be 
seized by any hungry Norman other than a relation of 
his own, the heiress of Ey hath been allowed to live 
in the old manor-house, and to enjoy such proportion 
of her father’s wealth as Lanfranc chooseth to allow 
her. Many Norman knights have sought her hand, 
as the best means of obtaining her land, but the Saxon 
maiden hath ever said Nay ! And Lanfranc, who hath 
done violence to the very Church for his own interest, 
and Ivo Taille-Bois, who got his own Saxon wife by 
violence, have hitherto had power enough to prevent 
any great wrong or violence being done to Ladie 
Alftrude, the heiress of Ey. Now the Ladie Alftrude 
remembers the times that are past, and sighs and 
weeps for the return of Hereward, vowing that she 
will wed none but him, and that-’ 



76 THE CAMP OF REFUGE 

‘ Thou seemest well informed in these matters, 
said one of the monks; ‘ but prithee, how didst thou 
obtain thine information ? ’ 

Elfric stammered a little, and blushed a good deal 
as he said : 

1 The young Ladie Alftrude hath long had for her 
handmaiden one Mildred of Haddenham, a daughter 
of my late father’s friend, a maiden well behaved and 
well favoured, and pious withal; and when I was sent 
to the manor-house of Ey upon the business of our 
own house at Spalding, and when I met Mildred at the 
church, or wake, or fair, we were ever wont to talk 
about my Lord Hereward and my Ladie Alftrude, as 
well as of other matters.’ 

'Father Adhelm,’ said my Lord Abbat of Crowland 
in a whisper, ' surely thou hast allowed too much 
liberty to thy convent.’ 

' My lord,’ replied the Prior of Spalding, ' it is but 
a novice that speaks; Elfric is not a cloister monk.’ 

'No, and never will be,’ said the Abbat of Crow- 
land, in another whisper. 

' I now see thy spell,’ said Thurstan, addressing 
Elfric, who was standing silent, and still blushed ; ' I 
now see the witchcraft that thou wouldst use. And 
dost thou believe that the Ladie Alftrude so loves 
Hereward that she will jeopardise her estates for him, 
and call home and marry him, though an outlaw ? 
And dost thou believe that Lord Hereward so loveth 
the Ladie Alftrude as to quit his new-found fortunes 
for her, and to come at her bidding into England? ’ 

' I believe in loving hearts,’ replied Elfric ; ' I 
believe in all that Mildred ever told me about Ladie 
Alftrude; and I can guess better than your shipman 
and trader of the Wash what it was that made Lord 
Hereward talk so high about his greatness in foreign 


THE MONKS OF ELY TAKE COUNSEL 77 

parts, and vilipend his own country, and make declara¬ 
tions that he would never return to a land of cowardice, 
and treachery, and falsehood. The exile hath heard 
that the Ladie Lucia hath become the wife of Ivo 
Taille-Bois, probably without hearing the violence and 
the craft which brought about that unholy marriage ; 
and probably without knowing how much the Ladie 
Lucia grieves, and how very a prisoner she is in her 
own manor-house, and in the midst of her own lands 
and serfs. My Lord Here ward may also have heard 
some unlucky rumours about a marriage between the 
Ladie Alftrude and some brother or cousin of Taille- 
Bois, which idle gossips said was to take place with 
the sanction of Lanfranc; and judge ye, my lords and 
holy fathers, whether this would not be enough to 
drive Hereward mad ! But a little wit and skill, and 
a little good luck, and all these cross and crooked 
things may be made straight. If I can win to see the 
Ladie Alftrude, and get from her some love-token and 
some comfortable messages to the exiled Lord of 
Brunn, and if I can declare and vow, of mine own 
knowledge, that the heart of the fair Saxon is aye the 
same, write me down a traitor or a driveller, my lords, 
an I bring not Hereward back with me.’ 

' Of a surety he will do it/ said Abbat Thurstan, 
rubbing his hands joyously. 

f I understand not much of this love logic, but I 
think he will do it/ said the Abbat of Crowland. 

' He will do anything/ said the Prior of Spalding; 
‘ but once let loose on this wild flight, we shall never 
again get the young hawk back to hand.' 

The rest of the business was soon arranged, and 
precisely and in every part as the novice himself 
suggested. No one thought of exacting oaths of 
fidelity from Elfric. His faith, his discretion, and 


78 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 

his valour had been well tried already, and his honest 
countenance gave a better assurance than oaths and 
bonds. As Saxon monks were the least acceptable of 
all visitors to the Normans, and as the dress of monk 
or palmer no longer gave protection to any man of 
English birth, and as the late novice of Spalding 
might chance to be but too well known in Ivo Taille- 
Bois’s vicinity, Elfric disguised himself as one of the 
poorest of the wandering menestrels—half musician, 
half beggar and idiot; and in this guise and garb, he, 
on the second day after the feast of Saint Edmund, 
set out alone to find his way across the fens, through 
the posts and watches of the Normans, and so on to 
the manor-house and the jealously guarded bower of 
the Ladie Alftrude. He was to return to Ely, if good 
fortune attended him, within seven days; and then 
he would be ready to proceed to the country of the 
Netherlanders, to seek for Lord Here ward, and to 
purchase the warlike harness that was wanted. As 
soon as he had taken his departure from the abbey, a 
quick boat was sent down the Ouse with orders to the 
steadiest and oftenest tried shipman of Lynn to get 
his good bark in readiness for a sea voyage, and to 
bring it up to Ely, in order to take on board an 
important passenger bound on an embassage for my 
Lord Abbat. 

Although the love of the Ladie Alftrude might 
perchance bring back Lord Hereward, it was not 
likely that it should buy from the trading men of 
Ypres, or Ghent, or Bruges, the bows and the cross¬ 
bows, the swords and the lance-heads, the coats of 
mail, and the other gear that were so much wanted ; 
and therefore Abbat Thurstan, after collecting what 
little he could from his guests and in the Camp of 
Refuge, and after taking his own signet-ring from his 


THE MONKS OF ELY TAKE COUNSEL 79 

finger, and his own prelatical cross of gold and chain 
of gold from his neck, called upon the chamberlain 
and the cellarer and the sacrist for all the coin that 
had been put by the pilgrims into the shrine-box. 
This time the livid-faced cellarer was silent and 
obedient; but the chamberlain, demurring to the 
order of my Lord Abbat, said : 

* Surely these contributions of the faithful were at 
all times devoted to the repairing and beautifying of 
our church ! ’ 

‘ Thou sayest it/ quoth my Lord Abbat; ‘ but if we 
get not weapons and harness wherewith to withstand 
the invaders, we shall soon have no church left us to 
repair or beautify. By the holy face and incorruptible 
body of Saint Etheldreda, I will strip her very shrine 
of the gold plates which adorn it, and of the silver 
lamps which burn before it, and melt the gold and the 
silver, and barter the ingots for arms, rather than see 
the last refuge of my countrymen broken in upon, and 
the accursed Normans in my house of Ely ! ’ 

c But doth not this savour of sacrilege ? ’ said the 
sacrist. 

‘Not so much as of patriotism and of real devotion 
to our saint and foundress. Saint Etheldreda, a true 
Saxon and East Anglian saint, will approve of the 
deed, if it should become necessary to strip her shrine. 
Her honour and sanctity depend not on lamps of silver 
and plates of gold, however rich and rare: the faith¬ 
ful flocked to her tomb, and said their orisons over it 
when it was but a plain stone block, with no shrine 
near it; and well I ween more miracles were wrought 
there, in the simple old times, than we see wrought 
now. Should the Normans get into our church, they 
will strip the shrine, an we do not; and they will rifle 
the tombs of Saint Sexburga, Saint Ermenilda, and 


80 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 

Saint Withburga, and cast forth the bodies of our 
saints upon the dung-heap! O sacrist! know ye 
not how these excommunicated foreigners are every¬ 
where treating the saints of Saxon birth, and are 
everywhere setting up strange saints, whose names 
were never before heard by Englishmen, and cannot 
be pronounced by them ! The reason of all this is 
clear: our Saxon hagiology is filled with the names 
of those that were patriots as well as saints, and we 
cannot honour them in one capacity without think¬ 
ing of them in the other/ 

f This is most true/ said the chamberlain ; f and the 
Normans be likewise setting up new shrines to the 
Blessed Virgin, and bringing in Notre Dames, and our 
Lady of Walsingham, and other ladies that were never 
heard of before; and they are enforcing pilgrimages 
in wholly new directions ! If these things endure, 
alack and woe the while for our house of Ely, and for 
the monks of Saint Edmund’s-Bury, and for all Saxon 
houses ! Our shrine boxes will be empty ; we shall be 
neglected and forgotten in the land, even if the Nor¬ 
mans do not dispossess us.’ 


CHAPTER VI 

IVO TAILLE-BOIS AND THE LADIE LUCIA 

Within the moated and battlemented manor-house 
near to the bank of the Welland, which Elfric had 
stopped to gaze upon as he was travelling from Crow- 
land to Spalding, there was held a feast on the fourth 
day after the feast of Saint Edmund, for the said fourth 
day from the great Saxon festival was the feast-day of 
some saint of Normandie or of Anjou, and the Ladie 
Lucia, maugre her sorrow and affliction, had given birth 
to a male child a moon agone, and the child was to be 
baptized on this day with much rejoicing. Ivo Taille- 
Bois and his Norman retainers were glad, inasmuch as 
the birth of a son by a Saxon wife went to secure them 
in their possession of the estates ; and the Ladie Lucia 
was glad of heart, as a mother cannot but rejoice at 
the birth of her first-born ; and her Saxon servants, 
and all the old retainers of her fathers house, and all 
the Saxon serfs, were glad, because their future lord 
would be more than one half Saxon, being native to 
the country, a child of the good Ladie Lucia, the 
daughter of their last Saxon lord. So merry were all, 
that grievances seemed to be forgotten : the Normans 
ceased to oppress and insult; the Saxons ceased, for 
the time being, to complain. The feast was very 
bountiful, for the Ladie Lucia had been allowed the 
ordering of it; and the company was very numerous 

F 


82 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 







and much mixed, for many Saxons of name had been 
bidden to the feast, and pledges had been given on 
both sides that there should be a truce to all hostilities 
and animosities; that there should be what the Nor¬ 
mans called the Truce of God until the son of Ivo 
Taille-Bois and Lucia, the presumptive heir to all the 
lands of the old lord, should be christened, and his 
christening celebrated in a proper manner. No less a 
man than the prelate Lanfranc had interfered in making 
this salutary arrangement. And for the first time since 
the death of her father, Lanfranc’s fair ward, the Ladie 
Alftrude, had come forth from her own manor-house 
to attend at the earnest invitation of her cousin the 
Ladie Lucia. The Saxon heiress had come attended 
by sundry armed men and by two aged English priests 
who stood high in the consideration and favour of the 
potent Lanfranc. When, landing from her boat (the 
country was now nearly everywhere under water), she 
walked up to the gate of the house, and entering, drew 
aside her wimple and showed her sweet young face 
and bright blue eyes, there rose a murmur of admir¬ 
ation from all that were assembled there: the Saxons 
vowed in good old English that the Ladie Alftrude was 
the fairest and noblest maiden in all England ; and the 
Normans swore in Norman-French and with many a 
Vive Dieu that they had never beheld anything equal 
to her either on the other side of the seas or on this ! 
Nay, some of the Norman knights and more than one 
whose beard was growing grey while he was yet in 
poverty or wholly unprovided with any English estate, 
forgot the broad lands that Alftrude inherited, to think 
only of her beautiful face. Yet when Alftrude kissed 
her fair cousin and her cousin’s child, and sat down by 
the side of the Ladie Lucia at the top of the hall, it 
was hard to say which was the more lovely, the young- 
matron, or the scarcely younger maiden. 



IVO TAILLE-BOIS AND THE LADIE LUCIA 83 


‘ Benedicite,’ said a young monk of Evreux who had 
come over for promotion in some English abbey, ‘ but 
the daughters of this land be fair to look upon ! * 

‘They be,’ said a starch man in mail, ‘and they will 
conquer the conquerors of England, and soon cause the 
name and distinction of Norman to be swallowed up 
and forgotten in the country.’ 

‘ Had I come hither before taking my vows at 
Evreux, the devil might have been a monk for me, but 
I would have been none of it 1 

Peaceably, ay, and merrily, passed off the day. The 
fair Ladie Alftrude stood at the font, and was one of 
the sponsors for her cousin’s first-born. The banquet 
succeeded to the baptism, and dancing and music in 
the hall followed on the banquet. The old times 
seemed to be coming back again, those peaceful days 
of good King Edward, Cceli delicice, when every free¬ 
born Englishman enjoyed his own, and every noble 
thane or earl held hospitality to be one of his primary 
duties. 

But Ivo Taille-Bois, though he boasted of being 
cousin to Duke William, was a greedy low-born churl, 
and therefore he needs must mar the happiness of his 
young wife (who ever since the birth of her son had 
been striving to forget how she had been made his 
wife), by talking of his unprovided brother, who had 
arrived in England, and was now tarrying about the 
Conqueror’s court in the hope of obtaining from Lan- 
franc the hand of his rich Saxon ward. The Ladie 
Lucia, knowing full well how her cousin’s heart lay 
toward Hereward, tried often to change the strain, 
but her Norman lord, forgetful even of courtesy to his 
guests, would still keep vexing her ear with his 
brother’s suit, and instead of continuing to be thankful 
to his saints for his own good fortune in getting so vast 



84 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 

an heritage, and so fair a wife, and then so promising 
a child, he spoke as though he should feel himself 
a beggar until all the domains of the Ladie Alftrude 
were in the hand of his family. An anger that would 
not be concealed flashed in his eye whenever he saw 
any well-fa’red knight or gallant youth discoursing with 
Alftrude, and whether it were a Norman or a Saxon 
his wrath seemed equal. Desperate thoughts and 
dark designs flitted through his mind. At one time he 
thought that now that he had got the young heiress 
into his house he would forcibly keep her where she 
was until his brother should arrive and press his own 
suit in the ungodly manner of the first Norman con¬ 
querors ; but he cowered under the dread of Lanfranc 
and a Norman sentence of excommunication, and he 
saw that the thing was not to be done without great 
peril and much bloodshed under his own roof, for the 
Saxon guests were numerous far above the Normans, 
and though, mayhap, several of his Norman guests 
would not have scrupled about the deed if it had been 
for their own profit, they could not be expected to con¬ 
cur in it, or even to allow it, when it was only for the 
profit of him and his brother. Vanity, thy name was 
Norman ! There was young Guiscard of Avranches, 
there was tall Etienne of Rouen (and verily a tall and 
well-proportioned young man was he, and one that 
could talk glibly both in English and in French), there 
was Baldwin of the Mount, a most nimble dancer, and 
with a fine gilded cloak over his shoulders and not a 
crown in his purse (even like all the rest of them); 
there was old Mainfroy of La Perche, who had followed 
Robert Guiscard into Italie and Grecia, and had lost an 
eye and half of a nose in those wars before Ladie Alf¬ 
trude was bora; and there was old Drogo from Chinon 
who looked as though he had added to his own nose 



IVO TAILLE-BOIS AND THE LADIE LUCIA 85 

that half of a nose Mainfroy had lost (so hugeous and 
misshapen was Drogo’s nose!); and not one of these 
gay knights but thought that the Ladie Alftrude having 
once seen and heard him must prefer him to all the 
world. In their own conceit they were, one and all of 
them, already Lords of Ey and husbands of Alftrude. 
Judge you then whether Ivo Taille-Bois could have 
safely ventured to stay his fair guest against her will, 
or shut up his wife’s cousin in close bower for his as 
yet unknown and unseen brother! 

But there was now in the hall a merrier eye, and one 
more roguish withal, than ever shone under the brows 
of a Norman. The drawbridge being down, and the 
gate of the house wide open, that all who list might 
enter and partake according to his degree of some of 
the good things that were provided, a young Saxon glee- 
man or menestrel came over the bridge unchallenged, 
and only paused under the low archway of the gate. 
His dress was tattered and torn, and not free from the 
mud and slime of the fens, but sweet and clear was his 
voice, and merry and right old English his song; and 
so all the Saxons that heard him gave him welcome, 
and bade him enter the hall and sing a lay in honour 
of the Ladie Lucia and of her first-born son, who would 
be good lord to all Saxon folk as his grandfather had 
been before him. But before going into the hall, 
where the feast was just over, and all the tables cleared, 
the glee-man went aside into the buttery to renew his 
strength with a good meal, and refresh his voice with 
a cup of good wine. When he entered the hall the old 
Saxon seneschal cried, ‘ A glee-man ! another glee-man 
come to sing an English song!’ The Norman menestrels 
looked scornfully at him and his tattered cloak; and 
the Saxon menestrels asked of one another who he might 
be; for none of them knew him, albeit the menestrels, 


86 THE CAMP OF REFUGE 

like the beggars and other happy vagabonds of old 
England, were united in league and brotherhood, in 
sort that every menestrel of East Anglia was thought to 
know every other menestrel or glee-man of that country. 
But when the new and unknown comer had played his 
preludium on his Saxon lyre of four strings, and had 
sung his downright Saxon song with a voice that was 
clear as a bell, and at times loud as a trumpet, the 
English part of the company, from the highest degree 
to the lowest, shouted and clapped their hands; and 
all the English menestrels vowed that he was worthy of 
their guild ; while even the Norman glee-men confessed 
that, although the words were barbarous and not to be 
understood by civil men, the air was good, and the 
voice of the best. Whether the words were ancient as 
the music, or whether they were made in part or 
wholly for the occasion by the singer, they went deep 
into the hearts both of the Ladie Alftrude and the 
Ladie Lucia; and while the young matron of the house 
put a little ring into a cup, and bade her little Saxon 
page fill the cup with the best wine, and hand it to the 
Saxon menestrel, the maiden Alftrude went straight to 
the spot where that menestrel was standing, and asked 
him to sing his song again. And when the glee-man 
had knelt on his knee to the mistress of the house, 
and had drained her cup of wine until not so much as 
the ghost of a drop was left in it, and when he had 
sung his song over again, and more deftly and joyously 
than he had sung it before, the Ladie Alftrude still 
kept near him, and, discoursing with him, took three 
or more turns across the lower part of the hall. Saxon 
lords and Saxon dames and maidens of high degree 
were ever courteous to the poor and lowly, and ever 
honoured those who had skill in minstrelsy. At first 
the Ladie Alftrude smiled and laughed as if at some 


IVO TAILLE-BOIS AND THE LADIE LUCIA 87 


witty conceit let fall by the menestrel; but then those 
who watched her wel], and were near enough to see, 
saw a cloud on her brow and a blush on her cheek, and 
then a paleness, and a short gasping as if for breath. 
But all this passed away, and the maiden continued to 
discourse calmly with the menestrel, and whenever the 
menestrel raised his voice it was only to give utterance 
to some pleasant gibe. 

Ivo Taille-Bois, albeit he had seen him often under 
another hood, might not know him, and all the English 
glee-men might continue to wonder who he was; but 
we know full well that the menestrel was none other 
than Elfric the novice. He had found his way un¬ 
scathed to Ey, and not finding the Ladie Alftrude there, 
he had followed her to the manor-house of her fair 
cousin, well pleased that such a celebration and feast 
would make easy his entrance into the house. A 
maiden of Alftrude’s degree could not travel and visit 
without a featy handmaiden attendant upon her. 
Rough men that bend bows and wield swords and 
spears, and make themselves horny fists, are not fit to 
dress a ladie s hair or tie her sandals ; and well we ween 
it becometh not priests with shaven crowns to be lacing 
a maiden’s bodice ; and so, besides the armed men and 
the two churchmen, the Ladie Alftrude had brought 
with her Mildred of Haddenham, that maiden well- 
behaved and well-favoured and pious withal, whom 
Elfric was wont to entertain with talk about my Lord 
Hereward, as well as of other matters. Now Mildred 
of Haddenham was there at the lower end of the hall, 
seated among other handmaidens; and as soon as 
Elfric entered, or, at the latest, as soon as he finished 
the first verse of his song, she knew who the menestrel 
was as well as we do. While the Ladie Alftrude was 
before their eyes, few of the noble company cared to 


88 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


look that way or upon any other than her; but if a 
sharp eye had watched, it would have seen that Mildred 
several times blushed a much deeper red than her mis¬ 
tress, and that the young glee-man’s eyes were rather 
frequently seeking her out. And at last, when the 
Ladie Alftrude returned to her cousin at the head of 
the hall, and the floor of the hall was cleared for an 
exhibition of dancers, the glee-man, after some gyra¬ 
tions, found his way to the side of Mildred of Hadden- 
ham, and kept whispering to her, and making her blush 
even redder than before, all the other handmaidens 
wondering the while, and much envying Mildred, for, 
albeit his cloak was tattered and his hose soiled, the 
young menestrel, besides having the sweetest voice, was 
surpassingly well-favoured in form and face, and had 
the happiest-looking eye that ever was seen. 

The Ladie Alftrude talked long in a corner with her 
cousin the Ladie Lucia, and then there was a calling 
and consulting with Mildred of Haddenham, as though 
her mistress’s head-gear needed some rearrangement. 

And after this the two cousins and the waiting-woman 
quitted the hall, and went into an upper and inner 
chamber, and tarried there for a short while, or for * 
about the time it takes to say a score of Aves. Then 
they come back to the hall, and the Ladie Lucia and 
the Ladie Alftrude sit down together where the com¬ 
pany is most thronged. But where is the curiously 
delicate little ring that was glittering on Ladie Alf¬ 
trude’s finger ? . . . Ha! Ha! we wot well that Elfric 
hath got it, and other love-tokens besides, that he may 
carry them beyond seas, and bring back Here ward to 
his ladie-love and to England that cannot do without 
him. But where is that merriest of glee-men ? . . . 

Many in the hall were asking the question, for they 
wanted to hear him again. But Elfric was gone, and 


IVO TAILLE-BOIS AND THE LADIE LUCIA 89 

none seemed to know how or when he went. Mayhap, 
maid Mildred knew something about it, for when the 
English part of the company began to call for the glee- 
man with the tattered cloak, that he might sing an¬ 
other merry song, she turned her face to the wall and 
wept. 

Well, I ween, had our simple dull Saxons out-witted 
the nimbie-witted Normans ! Well had the menestrel 
and the ladies and the waiting-maid played their several 
parts! Could Ivo Taille-Bois but have known his 
errand, or have guessed at the mischief that he was 
brewing for him, either Elfric would never have entered 
those walls, or he would never have left them alive. 


CHAPTER VII 


hereward’s return 

There may be between Thamesis and the Tyne worse 
seas and more perilous rocks; but when the north-east 
wind blows right into that gulf, and the waves of the 
German Ocean are driven on by the storms of winter, 
the practised mariner will tell you that the navigation 
of the Wash, the Boston Deeps, and the Lynn Deeps, is 
a fearful thing to those who know the shoals and coasts, 
and a leap into the jaws of death to those that know 
them not. Besides the shallows near shore, there be 
sandbanks and treacherous shoals in the middle of the 
bay, and these were ofttimes shifting their places or 
changing their shapes. Moreover, so many rivers and 
broad streams and inundations, that looked like regular 
rivers in the wet seasons of the year, poured their 
waters into the Wash, that it required all the skill of 
the mariner and pilot to find a way into the proper bed 
of any one particular river, as the Ouse, the Nene, or 
the Welland. Here are many quicksands, fatal to 
barks, when concealed under the water; and even in 
summer-tide, when the waters are dried, the shep¬ 
herds and their flocks are often taught by a woeful 
experience that these quicksands have a wonderful 
force in sucking in and holding fast whatsoever cometh 
upon them. In this sort the perils of shipmen are not 
over even when they reach the shore, and are advan- 

90 


HEREWARD’S RETURN 


91 


cing to tread upon what seemeth like terra firma. The 
Wash and its sandbanks and the quicksands had 
made more East-Anglian widows and orphans than 
were made by any other calamity besides, save always 
the fierce Norman conquest. 

It was under one of the fiercest and loudest tem¬ 
pests that ever blew from the sky of winter, and upon 
one of the roughest seas that ever rolled into the 
Wash, that five barks, which seemed all to be deeply 
laden and crowded with men, drove past the shoal 
called the Dreadful, and made for that other shoal 
called the Inner Dousing. The sun, which had not 
been visible the whole day, now showed itself like a 
ball of fire as it sank in the west behind the flats 
and fens of Lincolnshire ; and when the sun was down 
the fury of the tempest seemed to increase. When 
they had neared the Inner Dousing, four of the barks 
took in all their sail and lay-to as best they could in 
the trough of the sea; but the fifth bark stood 
gallantly in for the Wash, with nearly all her sails 
up. Swift as it bounded over the waves, it was dark 
night before the foremost bark reached the little cape 
where stands the chapel of Our Ladie. Here the 
bark showed three lights at her mast-head, and then 
three lights over her prow, and then three over her 
stern. Quickly as might be, these lights from on 
board the fifth and foremost bark were answered by 
three times three of lights on the belfry of Our 
Ladie’s chapel; and had it not been for the roaring 
of the winds and the loud dashing of the sea on the 
resounding shore, those on land by Our Ladie’s chapel 
might have heard a three times three of hearty cheers 
from those on shipboard, and those on the ship might 
have heard every cheer given back with interest and 
increase by the crowd of true Saxons that stood by 


92 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


the chapel. The bark next showed at her masthead 
a broad blue light, such as had never been seen before 
in these parts; and presently from the lee side of the 
Inner Dousing four other bright blue lights gleamed 
across the black sky ; and having in this wise answered 
signal, the four barks followed in the track of the 
fifth and came up with it off Our Ladie’s chapel. 
Still keeping a little in advance, like the pilot and 
admiral of the little fleet, the bark that had first 
reached the coast glided into Lynn Deeps; and as it 
advanced towards the mouth of the Ouse, signal- 
lights or piloting lights rose at every homestead and 
hamlet, from Kitcham to Stone’s-end, from Stone’s- 
end to Castle Rising, and from Castle Rising to the 
good town of Lynn. And besides these stationary 
lights, there were other torches running along the 
shore close above the line of sea foam. And much was 
all this friendly care needed, the deeps being narrow 
and winding and the shoals and sand-banks showing 
themselves on every side, and the wind still blowing 
a hurricane, and the masts of the barks bending and 
cracking even under the little sail that they now 
carried. On this eastern side of the Wash few could 
have slept, or have tarried in their homes this night ; 
for when—near uj^on midnight, and as the monks of 
Lynn were preparing to say matins in the chapel of 
Saint Nicholas—the five barks swirled safely into the 
deep and easy bed of the Ouse, and came up to the 
prior s wharf, and let go their anchors, and threw 
their stoutest cordage ashore, to the end that the 
mariners there might make them fast, and so give a 
double security against wind and tide, the wharf and 
al] the river bank was covered with men, women, and 
children, and the houses in the town behind the river 
bank were nearly all lighted up, as if it had been 


HE REWARD’S RETURN 


93 


Midsummer’s Eve, instead of being the penultimate 
night of the Novena of Christmas. It was not difficult 
to make out that the foremost of the barks and one 
other belonged to Lynn, inasmuch as the Lynn folk 
leaped on board of them as soon as they were made 
fast at the wharf, calling upon their town fellows, 
their brothers or sons, and hugging them more Saxonico 
when they found them out on the crowded decks. 
The other barks were of foreign structure, and the 
mariners seemed to be all foreigners; but the many 
passengers in each of them were all Englishmen, and 
landsmen besides; for they had all been very sea-sick, 
and were now very impatient to get their feet upon 
dry land. 

The first that landed from the foremost bark was a 
tall, robust, and handsome man, dressed as Saxon 
noblemen and warriors w r ere wont to dress before the 
incoming of the ill fashions of Normandie. 

He carried in his right hand a long straight and 
broad sword, the blade of which was curiously 
sheathed, and the hilt of which formed a cross. 
When he had crossed the plankings of the wharf, and 
reached the solid ground, he knelt on one knee and 
kissed the cross of his sword; and then throwing 
himself prone upon the earth, and casting wide his 
arms as though he would embrace it and hug it, he 
kissed the insensate soil, and thanked his God and 
every saint in the Saxon calendar for that he had 
been restored to the land which gave him birth, and 
which held the dust and bones of his fathers. Some 
who had seen him in former days on the Spalding 
side of the Wash, and some who had been apprised 
of his coming, began instantly to shout, ( It is he ! - 
it is Lord Hereward of Brunn! It is Hereward the 
Saxon ! It is the Lord of Brunn, come to get back 


94 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


his own and to help us to drive out the Normans.’ 
The shouts were taken up on every side, mariners 
and landsmen, foreigners and home-born fensmen, 
and women and children, crying, f It is Hereward 
the Saxon ! Long live the young Lord of Brunn, 
who will never shut his hall-door in the face of a 
poor Englishman, nor turn his back on a French¬ 
man ! ’ Some hemmed him in, and kissed his hands, 
and the sheath of his long straight sword, and the 
skirts of his mantle, and the very sandals on his 
feet; while others held their glaring torches close 
over his head, that they might see him and show 
him to their mates. It was one Nan of Lynn, and a 
well-famed and well-spoken woman, that said, as she 
looked upon the Lord Hereward, f We Englishwomen 
of the fens will beat the men-at-arms from Nor¬ 
mandie, an we be but led by such a captain as this; 
With that steel cap on his head, and that scarlet 
cloak over his shoulders, he looks every inch as 
stalwart and as handsome a warrior as the archangel 
Michael, whose portraiture we see in our church ! ’ 

The person nearest in attendance on Lord Here¬ 
ward was that lucky wight Elfric, who had been to 
seek him in foreign parts; but it was Elfric no longer 
attired either as a tattered menestrel or as a shave¬ 
ling novice, but as something betwixt a blithesome 
page and an armed retainer. He too had more than 
one tear of joy in his eye as he trod upon the shore; 
but this tender emotion soon gave way to a hearty if 
not boisterous mirth, and so he kept shouting, f Make 
way for Hereward the Lord of Brunn ! ’ and kept 
squeezing the hands of all the men and women and 
children he knew in Lynn, as they walked towards 
the convent where Hereward was to rest until day¬ 
light. Next to Elfric, the man that seemed most 


HEREWARD’S RETURN 95 

entirely devoted to the service and to the person of 
Hereward was a slight, slim man of middle stature 
and very dark complexion; his hair was long, and 
would have been blacker than the plumage of the 
raven save that time had touched it here and there 
with grey; his nose was arched like the beak of a 
goshawk; and his eye, that looked out from under 
a very black and bushy but very lofty eyebrow, was 
blacker and keener than the eye of any hawk or 
other fowl of prey. Some, who had seen now and 
then a wandering Israelite, thought that this stranger 
looked marvellously like a Jew; but this was a mar¬ 
vellous mistake. None could think him either young 
or handsome; yet was there something about his 
person and in his face that none could help looking 
at, and then remembering for aye. Among the stout 
Saxons were some that could have taken the dark, 
slim stranger between their finger and thumb, and 
have squeezed the life out of him with as much ease 
as boys crack nuts; but there was a quickness and 
sharpness in the stranger’s eye that seemed to say he 
could outwit them all if he chose. On the way to 
the convent Hereward several times addressed him in 
some foreign tongue, and seemed by his looks to be 
taking advice of him. 

As the convent was but a dependency of my Lord 
Abbat Thurstan, and a succursal cell to Ely, ye may 
judge whether the Lord of Brunn and those who 
came with him met with hospitality! Saxons and 
strangers (and all landed from the barks as soon as 
might be, and hastened to the convent) found suppers 
and beds, or suppers and clean sweet rushes to lie 
upon, either with the sub-prior or in the guest-house. 

In the morning, as soon as it was light, Hereward, 
Elfric, and the dark stranger, and a score of armed 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


96 

men, re-embarked in the good ship that had brought 
them to Lynn, and proceeded up the river Ouse, 
leaving the other four barks at their moorings under 
the priors wharf. These four craft were to keep a 
good look-out, and in case of any armed ships coming 
into the Wash they were to run, through the most 
intricate passage, for Spalding; but if no enemy 
should appear (and of this there was scarcely a 
chance, as the weather continued stormy, and the 
Normans were bad seamen, and very badly provided 
with shipping), they were all to wait at Lynn until 
Lord Hereward should come back from Ely to lead 
them to Spalding, and, further still, to his own house 
at Brunn. 

Broad and free was the river Ouse, and up as high 
as the junction of the Stoke Lord Here ward’s bark 
was favoured by the tide as well as by the wind. 
Above the Stoke the tide failed; but the wind blew 
steadily on, and many boats, with lusty rowers in 
them, came down from Ely and Chettisham and 
Littleport, and took the bark in tow, for the signal- 
lights and fires which had guided the fleet into Lynn 
had been carried across the fens and to the Abbey of 
Ely, and had told my Lord Abbat that the Lord 
Hereward was come. No bark had ever made such 
voyage before, nor have many made it since; but a 
good while before the sun went down our Lynn 
mariners made their craft fast to my Lord Abbat’s 
pier, and Hereward and his bold and trusty followers 
landed in the midst of a throng ten times greater 
and ten times more jubilant than that which had 
welcomed them at Lynn. Before quitting the ship 
Elfric put on his monastic habit. This he did not do 
without a sigh; and he carried with him under his 
novice’s gown the gay dress he had worn while in 


HEREWARD’S RETURN 


97 

foreign parts and on shipboard. Maybe he expected 
that services might be required from him in which 
such an attire would be useful; or perhaps he hoped 
that his superior of Spalding and the Abbat of 
Crowland w r ould, in considering the services he had 
rendered already, determine in their wisdom that the 
dress and calling of a monk were not those which 
suited him best. Although not bound by any irrevoc¬ 
able vow, Elfric was bound by the ties of gratitude 
to Father Adhelm, who had taken him into the 
succursal cell at Spalding when a very young and 
helpless orphan; and Elfric would never have been 
the man he proved himself if he had been forgetful 
of duties and obligations. 

At the outer gate of the convent Lord Hereward 
was met and embraced and welcomed by the high¬ 
hearted abbat of the house, by the Archbishop Sti- 
gand, the Abbat of Crowland, and by all the prelates 
and high churchmen; and next by all the cloistered 
monks of Ely; and next by the lay lords and the 
Saxon warriors of all parts : and all this right reverend 
and right noble company shouted, ‘ Welcome to our 
chief and our deliverer ! Honour and welcome to the 
young Lord of Brunn ! ’ 

As Thurstan led the Saxon hero by the hand 
towards his own Aula Magna, he said, f But for the 
solemn season, which brooks not much noise’ (the 
town folk, and the hinds that had come in from the 
fens, and the novices and lay-brothers, were continuing 
to shout and make noise enough to wake the dead 
that were sleeping in the cloisters), ' we would have 
received you, my lord, with a great clattering of bells 
and show of flags and banners ! Nevertheless thou 
comest at a most suitable moment and on the very 
verge of the most joyous of all seasons; ’tis the vigil 


G 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


98 

of the Nativity. On this Christmas Eve, like all well- 
regulated religious houses and all good Christians, we 
fast upon a banquet of eels and fish. At midnight we 
have the midnight mass, chanted in our best manner; 
and to-morrow we feast indeed, and give up all our 
souls to joy. To-morrow, then, our bells shall be 
struck upon so that the Norman knights and men-at- 
arms shall hear them in Cam-Bridge Castle, and shall 
tremble while they hear! And our Saxon flags, and 
the banners of our saints, yea, the great banner of 
Saint Etheldreda itself, shall be hung out on our 
walls! And when the other duties of the day are 
over, we will sing a Te Deinn laudamus for thy coming. 
My Lord Here ward, I have not known such joy, or 
half so much hope, since the day on which our good 
Edward ( Rex venerandus ) put this ring upon my finger 
and confirmed my election as abbat of this house ! 
My hope then was that I should be enabled to be a 
good ruler of this ancient brotherhood, and good lord 
to all the Saxon folk that dwell on the land of Saint 
Etheldreda. Now my higher hope is that thou wilt 
be enabled, O Hereward, to free all England from 
this cruel bondage ! ’ 

The young Saxon noble, being wholly a man of 
action, and gifted with much modesty, made but a 
very short reply to this and to other very long 
speeches; he simply said that he had come back to 
get back his own, and to help his good countrymen 
to get back their own; that the Norman yoke was all 
too grievous to be borne; that it was very strange and 
very sorrowful that brave King Harold came not back 
to his faithful people of East Anglia; and that, until 
King Harold should come, he, Hereward, would do 
his best for his friends and for himself. 

Though all were eager to be informed of the 


HE REWARD’S RETURN 


99 


strength which the Lord of Brunn brought with him, 
and of the plans he proposed to pursue, Thurstan 
thought it churlish to question any man fasting. 
Here ward, however, declared that he had fared well 
on board the bark, and could well wait till supper- 
time. And so, having closed the doors of the abbat’s 
great hall, the lords and prelates proceeded to de¬ 
liberate with the dispossessed Lord of Brunn. The sum 
of Hereward’s replies to many questions and cross¬ 
questions (he having no genius for narration) was 
simply this: Elfric had found him out in Flanders, 
and had delivered to him letters, and messages, and 
tokens which had determined him to quit his adoptive 
country and return to England. Many English exiles 
who had been living in the Netherlands had made up 
their minds to come over with him. Such money as 
they could command among them all, or borrow at 
interest from the traders of Flanders, who seriously 
felt the loss of their trade with England, had been 
applied to the purchase of warlike harness, and to 
the hiring and equipping of three foreign barks. The 
master of a bark from Lynn that chanced to be in 
those parts had offered his bark and the services of 
himself and crew for nothing, or for what his liege 
lord the Abbat of Ely might at any time choose to 
give him. The gold and silver which my Lord Abbat 
had sent with Elfric had been properly and profitably 
employed ; and, besides spear-heads, and swords, and 
bows, and jackets of mail, the Lynn bark now lying 
at my Lord Abbat’s pier, and the other Lynn bark 
left behind at that town, had brought such a quantity 
of Rhenish and Mosel wine as would suffice for the 
consumption of the whole house until next Christmas. 
Counting the men that had come in all the barks, 
there were more than one hundred and ten true- 


100 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


hearted Saxons, well armed and equipped, and well 
practised in the use of arms, as well in the Saxon 
fashion as in the fashions used abroad; and every one 
of these men was proper to become a centurion, or 
the trainer and leader of a hundred of our fenmen. 
It was Lord Hereward’s notion that our great house 
at Ely and the Camp of Refuge would be best relieved 
or screened from any chance of attack, by the Saxons 
making at once a quick and sharp attack all along the 
Norman lines or posts to the north and north-west of 
the isle of Ely, or from Spalding to Brunn, and Crow- 
land, and Peterborough. Some thought that his lord- 
ship preferred beginning in this direction because 
his own estates and the lady of his love were there : 
we will not say that these considerations had no 
weight with him, but we opine that his plan was a 
good one, and that no great commander, such as 
Hereward was, would have begun the war upon the 
invaders in any other manner, time or place. Twenty 
of the armed men he had brought with him from their 
wearisome exile—or more than twenty if my Lord 
Abbat thought fit—he would leave at Ely; with the 
rest, who had been left with the ships at Lynn, he 
would go to the Welland river, and make a beginning. 

f But thou canst not go yet awhile,’ said Abbat 
Thurstan, thinking of the Christmas festivals and of 
the Rhenish wines; ‘ thou canst not quit us, my son, 
until after the feast of the Epiphany! ’Tis but 
twelve days from to-morrow, and the Normans are 
not likely to be a-stirring during those twelve days.’ 

‘ True, my Lord Abbat,’ said Hereward, 'the 
Normans will be feasting and rejoicing; but it is on 
that very account that I must go forthwith in order 
to take them unprepared and attack their bands 
separately, while they are feasting. An ye, holy 


HEREWARD'S RETURN 


101 


brothers, give me your prayers, and the saints grant 
me the success I expect, I shall have recovered for ye 
the house at Spalding and the Abbey of Crowland, 
and for myself mine humble house at Brunn, before 
these twelve days be over.’ 

f Then/ said the abbat, f thou mayest be back and 
keep the feast of the Epiphany with us.’ 

Hereward thought of keeping the feast in another 
place and with a different company, but the eager 
hospitality of Thurstan was not to be resisted, and 
so he promised that he would return, if he could do 
so without detriment to the business he had on hand. 
But when he spoke of setting forth on the morrow 
after high mass, not only the Lord Abbat, but every 
one that heard him, raised his voice against him, 
and Hereward yielded to the argument that it would 
be wicked to begin war on Christmas Day, or to do 
any manner of thing on that day except praying and 
feasting. 

Something did Hereward say in praise of Elfric, 
and of the ability, and courage, and quickness of 
invention, he had displayed while on his mission in 
foreign parts, and on shipboard. 

f Albeit/ said he, f I would not rob my good friends 
the Abbat of Crowland and the Prior of Spalding of so 
promising a novice, I needs must think that he would 
make a much better soldier than monk; nor can I 
help saying that I would rather have Elfric for my 
messenger and aid in the field than any Saxon youth I 
know, whether of low degree or high.’ 

f My good brother of Crowland and I have been 
thinking of these things/ said Abbat Thurstan; f and 
these are surely days when the saints of England 
require the services of men with steel caps on their 
heads as much as they require the services of men 


102 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


with shaven crowns. Not that some of us that 
wear cowls have not wielded arms and done good 
battle in our day for the defence of our shrines and 
houses.’ 

At this moment the eels and fish of the Christmas 
Eve supper were all ready, and the best cask of Rhenish 
which the bark had brought up to my Lord Abbat’s 
pier was broached. 


I 


CHAPTER VIII 


LORD HEREWARD GOES TO GET HIS OWN 

In no time had there been at the house of Ely so 
great and glorious a festival of the Nativity as that 
holden in the year of grace one thousand and seventy, 
the day after the return of the Saxon commander 
Hereward, Lord of Brunn. Learned brothers of the 
house have written upon it, and even to this day the 
monks of Ely talk about it. On the day next after 
the feast, several hours before sunrise, the mariners 
in the unloaded bark were getting all ready to drop 
down the Ouse to the good town of Lynn, and Lord 
Hereward was communing with the Abbat Thurstan, 
the Abbat of Crowland, and the Prior of Spalding, 
in my Lord Abbat’s bedchamber. The rest of the 
prelates and lay lords w r ere sleeping soundly in their 
several apartments, having taken their leave of Here¬ 
ward in a full carouse the night before. Many things 
had been settled touching correspondence or communi¬ 
cation, and a general co-operation and union of all 
the Saxons in the Camp of Refuge and all that dwelt 
in the fen country, whether in the isle of Ely, or in 
the isle of Thorney, or in Lindsey, or in Holland, or 
in other parts. Fresh assurances were given that 
the chiefs and fighting men would all acknowledge 
Hereward as their supreme commander, undertaking 

nothing but at his bidding, and looking to none but 

103 


104 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


him for their orders and instructions. Abbat Thur- 
stan agreed to keep the score of men that had been 
brought up to Ely in the bark, but he demurred 
about receiving and entertaining, as the commander 
of these men, the dark stranger with the hooked nose 
and sharp eye. He reward said that the stranger 
was a man remarkably skilled in the science of war, 
and in the art of defending places. Thurstan asked 
whether he were sure that he was not a spy of the 
Normans, or one that would sell himself to the 
Normans for gold ? Then the Lord of Brunn told 
what he knew, or that which he had been told, con¬ 
cerning the dark stranger. He was from Italie, from 
a region not very far removed from Rome and the 
patrimony of St. Peter; from the name of his town 
he was hight Girolamo of Salerno. His country 
had been all invaded, and devastated, and conquered 
by Norman tribes, from the same evil hive which had 
sent these depredators into merry England to make 
it a land of woe. Robert Guiscard, one of twelve 
brothers that were all conquerors and spoilers, had 
driven Girolamo from his home and had seized upon 
his houses and lands, and had abused the tombs of 
his ancestors, even as the followers of William the 
Bastard were now doing foul things with the graves 
of our forefathers. After enduring wounds, and 
bonds, and chains, Girolamo of Salerno had fled from 
his native land for ever, leaving all that was his in 
the hands of the Normans, and had gone over into 
Sicilie to seek a new home and settlement among 
strangers. But the Normans, who thought they had 
never robbed enough so long as there were more 
countries before them which they could rob and 
conquer, crossed the sea into Sicilie under Roger 
Guiscard, the brother of Robert, and made prey of 


HEREWARD GOES TO GET HIS OWN 105 

all that fair island seven years before the son of the 
harlot of Falaise crossed the Channel and came into 
England. Now Girolamo of Salerno had vowed upon 
the relics of all the saints that were in the mother 
church of Salerno, that he would never live under 
the Norman tyranny; and sundry of the Norman 
chiefs that went over with Roger Guiscard to Palermo 
had vowed upon the crosses of their swords that they 
would hang him as a dangerous man if they could 
but catch him. So Girolamo shook the dust of Sicilie 
and Mongibel from his feet, and, crossing the seas 
again, went into Grecia. But go where he would, 
those incarnate devils the Normans would be after 
him! He had not long lived in Grecia ere Robert 
Guiscard came over from Otrantum and Brundisium, 
to spoil the land and occupy it; therefore Girolamo 
fled again, cursing the Norman lance. He had 
wandered long and far in the countries of the Orient: 
he had visited ^the land of Egypt, he had been in 
Palestine, in Jerusalem, in Bethlehem : he had stood 
and prayed on the spot where our Lord was born, 
and on the spot w here He was crucified; but, weary¬ 
ing of his sojourn among Saracens, he had come 
back to the Christian west to see if he could find 
some home where the hated Normans could not 
penetrate, or where dwelt some brave Christian people 
that were hopeful of fighting against those oppressors. 
He w r as roaming over the earth in quest of enemies 
to the Normans when Hereward met him, two years 
ago, in Flanders, and took his hand in his as a sw r orn 
foe to all men of that race. Was, then, Girolamo ot 
Salerno a likely man to be a spy or fautor to the 
Normans in England ? Thurstan acknowledged that 
he was not. 

‘ But,’ said he, f some men are so prone to suspicion 


106 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


that they suspect everybody and everything that is 
near to them ; and some men, nay, even some monks 
and brothers of this very house, are so envious of my 
state and such foes to my peace of mind, that when¬ 
ever they see me more happy and fuller of hope than 
common, they vamp me up some story or conjure 
some spectrum to disquiet me and sadden me. Now, 
what said our prior and cellarer no later than last 
night ? They said, in the hearing of many of this 
house, inexpert novices as well as cloister-monks, that 
the dark stranger must be either an unbelieving Jew 
or a necromancer ; that when, at grand mass, the Host 
was elevated in the church, he shot glances of fire at 
it from his sharp eyes; and that when the service was 
over they found him standing behind the high altar 
muttering what sounded very like an incantation, in a 
tongue very like unto the Latin.’ 

Hereward smiled and said, c Assuredly he was but 
saying a prayer in his own tongue. My Lord Abbat, 
this Girolamo of Salerno hath lived constantly with 
me for the term of two years, and I will warrant him 
as true a believer as any man in broad England. He 
is a man of many sorrows, and no doubt of many 
sins; but as for his faith !—why he is a living and 
walking history of all the saints and martyrs of the 
Church, and of every miraculous image of Our Ladie 
that was ever found upon earth. His troubles and 
his crosses and his being unable to speak our tongue, 
or to comprehend what is said around him, may 
make him look moody and wild, and very strange : 
and I am told that in the country of his birth most 
men have coal-black hair and dark flashing eyes; but 
that .in Salerno there be no Israelites allowed, and 
no necromancers or warlocks or witches whatsoever ; 
albeit, the walnut-tree of Beneventum, where the 


HEREWARD GOES TO GET HIS OWN 107 

witches are said to hold their sabbat, be not very 
many leagues distant. In truth, my good Lord 
Abbat, it was but to serve you and to serve your 
friends and retainers, that 1 proposed he should stay 
for a season where he is; for I have seen such good 
proofs of his skill in the stratagems of war, and have 
been promised by him so much aid and assistance in 
the enterprises I am going to commence, that I would 
fain have him with me. I only thought that if he 
stayed a while here in quiet, he might learn to speak 
our tongue; and that if during my absence the Nor¬ 
mans should make any attempt from the side of Cam- 
Bridge upon this blessed shrine of Saint Etheldreda, he 
might, by his surpassing skill and knowledge of arms, 
be of use to your lordship and the good brothers.’ 

* These are good motives,’ said Thurstan, f and do 
honour to thee, my son. It is not in my wont to bid 
any stranger away from the house. . . . But—but this 
stranger doth look so very strange and wild, that I 
would rather he were away. Even our sub-sacrist, who 
hath not the same nature as the prior and cellarer, 
saith that all our flaxen-headed novices in the convent 
are afraid of that thin dark man, and that they say 
whenever the stranger’s large black eye catches theirs 
they cannot withdraw their eyes until he turns away 
from them. I think, my Lord Hereward, the stranger 
may learn our tongue in thy camp. I believe that the 
Normans will not try on this side now that the waters 
are all out, and our rivers and ditches so deep ; and if 
they do we can give a good account of them—and that 
I really do think that thou wilt more need than we 
this knowing man’s services : what say ye, my brother 
of Crowland ? ’ 

The Abbat of Crowland was wholly of the opinion 
of the Abbat of Ely, and so likewise was the prior of 


108 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


Spalding. It was therefore agreed that Girolamo of 
Salerno should accompany the young Lord of Brunn. 

‘But/ said Hereward, ‘in proposing to leave you 
this strange man from Italie, I thought of taking from 
you, for yet another while, that Saxon wight, Elfric, 
seeing that he knoweth all this fen country better 
than any man in my train; and that, while I am going 
round by the river and the Wash, I would fain despatch, 
by way of the fens, a skilled and trustful messenger in 
the direction of Ey-’ 

‘To salute the Ladie Alftrude, and to tell her that 
thou art come/ said the Abbat of Crowland. 

‘ Even so/ quoth Hereward ; ‘and to tell her more¬ 
over to look well to her manor-house, and to let her 
people know that I am come, and that they ought to 
come and join me at the proper time/ 

‘It is clear/ said the Prior of Spalding, ‘ that none 
can do this mission an it be not Elfric, who knoweth 
the goings and comings about the house at Ey-’ 

‘ Ay, and the maid-servant that dwelleth within I 
the gates/ quoth the Abbat of Crowland. 

The Prior of Spalding laughed, and eke my Lord 
Abbat of Ely; and when he had done his laugh, 
Thurstan said, ‘ This is well said, and well minded ; 
and as w r e seem to be all agreed that, upon various 
considerations, it would be better to unfrock the young 
man at once, let us call up Elfric, and release him 
from his slight obligations, and give him to Lord 
Hereward to do with him what he list. What say ye, 
my brothers ? ’ 

The two dignified monks said ‘yea’; and Elfric 
being summoned was told that henceforth he was Lord 
Hereward’s man, and that he might doff his cucullus, 
and let his brown locks grow on his tonsure as fast as 
they could grow. 




HEREWARD GOES TO GET HIS OWN 109 

The monk that sleeps in his horse-hair camise, and 
that has nothing to put on when he rises but his hose 
and his cloak, is not long a-dressing; yet in less time 
than ever monk attired himself, Elfric put on the 
soldier garb that he had worn while abroad. And 
then, having received from Hereward a signet-ring 
and other tokens, and a long message for the Ladie 
Alftrude, together with instructions how he was to 
proceed after he had seen her; and having bidden a 
dutiful farewell and given his thanks to the Prior of 
Spalding and to the two abbats, and having gotten the 
blessing of all three, Elfric girded a good sword to his 
loins, took his fen-stalf in his hand, and went down to 
the water-gate to get a light skerry, for the country 
was now like one great lake, and the journey to Ey 
must be mostly made by boat. 

It was now nigh upon day-dawn. The Lord Abbat 
and a few others accompanied the Lord of Brunn to 
the pier, and saw him on board ; then the mariners 
let go their last mooring, and the bark began to glide 
down the river. 

Before the light of this winter day ended, Hereward 
was well up the Welland, and the whole of his flotilla 
was anchored in that river not far from Spalding, 
behind a thick wood of willows and alders, which 
sufficed even in the leafless season to screen the barks 
from the view of the Norman monks in the succursal 
cell. 

As soon as it was dark, Hereward, the liberator, took 
one score and ten armed men into the lightest of the 
barks, and silently and cautiously ascended the river 
until he came close to the walls of the convent. The 
caution was scarcely needed, for the Normans, albeit 
they were ever reproaching the Saxons with gluttony 
and drunkenness, were feasting and drinking at an 


110 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 

immoderate rate, and had taken no care to set a watch. 
Brightly the light of a great wood fire and of many 
torches shone through the windows of the hall as 
Hereward landed with his brave men and surrounded 
the house, while the mariners were taking good care 
of the ferry-boat. 

f If these men were in their own house/ said Here¬ 
ward, f it is not I that would disturb their mirth on 
such a night; but as they are in the house of other 
men, we must even pull them forth by the ears. So ! 
where be the ladders ? ’ 

A strong ladder brought from the bark was laid 
across the moat, and ten armed men passed one by 
one over this ladder to the opposite side of the moat. 
The well-armed men were led by the brother of 
Wybert the wright, and by another of the men who 
had fled from Spalding town on that wicked night when 
Ivo Taille-Bois broke into the house. Now these two 
men of Spalding well knew the strong parts and the 
weak parts of the cell—as well they might, for they 
had ofttimes helped to repair the woodwork and the 
roof of the building. Having drawn the strong ladder 
after them to the narrow ledge of masonry on which 
they had landed, they raised it against the wall, and 
while some steadied it, first one armed man and then 
another climbed up by the ladder to the top of the 
stone and brick part of the walls. Then the brother 
of Wybert, climbing still higher, by clutching the 
beams and the rough timber got to the house-top, and 
presently told those below in a whisper that all was 
right, that the door at the head of the spiral staircase 
was unfastened and wide open. 

In a very short time ten armed men and the two 
hinds from Spalding town were safe on the roof; and 
the brother of Wybert said, * Now, Saxons ! ’ and as he 


HEREWARD GOES TO GET HIS OWN 111 


heard the signal. Lord Hereward said, ‘ Now, Saxons, 
your horns ! * And three stout Saxons, well skilled in 
the art of noise-making, put each his horn to his 
mouth and sounded a challenge, as loud as they could 
blow. Startled and wrathful, but not much alarmed, 
was the intrusive prior from Angers when he heard 
this noise, and bade his Angevin sacrist go to the 
window, and see what the Saxon slaves wanted at this 
time of night with their rascally cow-horns ! But 
when the sacrist reported that he saw a great bark 
lying in the river, and many armed men standing at 
the edge of the moat (in the darkness the sacrist took 
sundry stumps of willow-trees for warriors), the man 
of Angers became alarmed, and all Ivo Taille-Bois’s 
kindred became alarmed, and quitting the blazing fire 
and their good wine, they all ran to the windows of 
the hall to see what was toward. As they were a 
ruleless, lawless, unconsecrated rabble, who knew not 
what was meant by monastic discipline, and respect, 
and obedience, they all talked and shouted together, 
and shouted and talked so loud and so fast that it was 
impossible for any Christian man to be heard in answer 
to them. But at length the pseudo-prior silenced the 
gabble for a minute, and said, f Saxons, who are you, 
and what do you want at this hour, disturbing the 
repose of holy men at a holy season ? ’ 

Even this was said in Norman-French, which no 
man understood or could speak, except Hereward and 
the dark stranger who had attended him hither. But 
the Lord of Brunn gave out in good round French, 
* We are Saxons true, and true men to King Harold, 
and we be come to pull you out of this good nest 
which ye have defiled too long ! ’ 

f Get ye gone, traitors and slaves ! ’ cried the false 
prior from Angers; ' ye cannot cross our moat nor 


112 THE CAMP OF REFUGE 

force our gates, and fifty Norman lances are lying 
hard by.’ 

‘ False monk, we will see/ quoth the Lord of 
Brunn. ‘Now, Saxons, your blast-horns again; blow 
ye our second signal! ’ 

The hornmen blew might and main; and before 
their last blast had ceased echoing from an angle of 
the walls, another horn was heard blowing inside the 
house, and then was heard a rushing and stamping of 
heavy feet, and a clanging of swords in the hall, and a 
voice roaring, f Let me cleave the skull of two of these 
shavelings for the sake of Wybert the wright! ’ 

‘ Thou art cold and shivering, Girolamo/ said Here- 
ward; ‘ but step out of that quagmire where thou art 
standing, and follow me. We will presently warm 
ourselves at the fireside of these Frenchmen/ Giro¬ 
lamo followed the Lord of Brunn to the front of the 
house; and they were scarcely there ere the draw¬ 
bridge was down, and the gate thrown open. 

f Well done, Ralph of Spalding/ said Hereward, who 
rushed into the house followed by the score of armed 
men. But those who had descended from above by 
the spiral staircase had left nothing to be done by 
those who ascended from below. The false prior and 
all his false fraternity had been seized, and had been 
bound with their own girdles, and had all been thrown 
in a corner, where they all lay sprawling the one on 
the top of the other, and screaming and begging for 
Misericorde. The brother of Wybert the wright had 
given a bloody coxcomb to the prior, and one of Here- 
ward’s soldiers had slit the nose of a French monk 
that had aimed at him with a pike ; but otherwise 
little blood had been shed, and no great harm done, 
save that all the stoups of wine and all the wine-cups 
had been upset in the scuffle. The brother of Wybert 


HEREWARD GOES TO GET HIS OWN 113 

begged as a favour that he might be allowed to cut 
the throats of two of the false monks; but the Lord 
of Brunn, so fierce in battle, was aye merciful in 
the hour of victory, and never would allow the slaying 
of prisoners, and so he told the good man of Spalding 
town that the monks must not be slain ; but that, 
before he had done with them, they should be made 
to pay the price of his brother’s blood; nay three 
times the price that the Saxon laws put upon the life 
of a man of Wybert’s degree. 

‘ I would give up that hot for a little of their blood ! ’ 
said Wybert’s brother. But, nevertheless, he was 
obliged to rest satisfied; for who should dare gainsay 
the young Lord of Brunn ? 

Girolamo of Salerno, who understood nought of the 
debate between Hereward and the brother of Wybert, 
thought that the intrusive monks ought to be put into 
sacks and thrown into the river, inasmuch as that the 
Normans, when they conquered Salerno, threw a score 
of good monks of that town and vicinity into the sea ; 
but when he delivered this thought unto the Lord 
Hereward, that bold-hearted and kind-hearted Saxon 
said that it was not the right way to correct cruelties 
by committing cruelties, and that it was not in the 
true English nature to be prone to revenge. All this 
while, and a little longer, the false alien monks, with 
their hands tied behind them, lay sprawling and 
crying Misericorde: howbeit, when they saw and 
understood that death was not intended, they plucked 
up their courage and began to complain and reprove. 

‘ This is a foul deed,’ said one of them, ‘ a very foul 
deed, to disturb and break in upon, and smite with 
the edge of the sword, the servants of the Lord.’ 

‘ Not half so foul a deed,’ quoth Hereward, ( as that 
done by Ivo Taille-Bois, the cousin of ye all, and the 


H 



114 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


man who put ye here, and thrust out the Saxon 
brotherhood at the dead of night, slaying their cook. 
Ye may or may not have been servants of the Lord in 
the countries from which he came, but here are ye 
nought but intruders and usurpers, and the devourers 
of better men’s goods.’ 

Here the prior from Angers spoke from the heap in 
the comer, and said : 

f For this night’s work thou wilt be answerable unto 
the king.’ 

‘ That will I,’ quoth the Lord of Brunn, f when bold 
King Harold returns.’ 

f I will excommunicate thee and thy fautors,’ said 
the intrusive prior. 

c Thou hadst better not attempt it,’ said Hereward, 
‘ for among my merry men be some that know enough 
of church Latin to make out the difference between a 
Maledicite and a Benedicite ; and I might find it difficult 
to prevent their cutting your weazens.’ 

‘ Yet would I do it by bell, book, and candle, if I 
could get the bell and candle, and read the book,’ said 
the intrusive prior. 

‘ Thou hadst better not attempt it,’ said two or three 
voices from the heap ; but another voice, which seemed 
buried under stout bodies and habits and hoods, said : 

( There is no danger, for our prior cannot read, and 
never had memory enough to say by heart more 
Latin than lies in a Credo. Beshrew you, brothers 
all, bespeak these Saxons gently, so that they may 
give us leave to go back into Normandie. If I had 
bethought me that I was to play the monk in this 
fashion, Ivo Taille-Bois should never have brought me 
from the plough-tail ! ’ 

When the Lord of Brunn and Girolamo of Salerno 
had done laughing, the Lord Hereward said : 


HEREWARD GOES TO GET HIS OWN 115 

c Let this goodly hall be cleared of this foul rubbish. 
Girolamo, see these intruders carried on board the 
bark and thrown into the hold. We will send them 
to my Lord Abbat at Ely, that they may be kept as 
hostages. But tell the shipmen not to hurt a hair of 
their heads.’ 

When the alien monks understood that they must 
go, they clamoured about their goods and properties. 
This made Hereward wroth, and he said : 

f YV hen ye thrust out the good English monks, ye 
gave them nought! Nevertheless I will give ye all 
that ye brought with ye.’ 

Here the voice that had spoken before from under 
the heap said : 

f We all know we brought nothing with us—no, not 
so much as the gear we wear! Therefore let us claim 
nothing, but hasten to be gone, and so hope to get 
back the sooner into Normandie/ 

But the prior and the sacrist and divers others 
continued to make a great outcry about their goods, 
their holy-books, their altar vases, their beds and their 
bed-clothes ; and as this moved Lord Hereward’s ire, 
he said to his merry men that they must turn them 
out; and the merry men all did turn them out by 
pulling them before and kicking them behind: and in 
this manner the unlettered and unholy crew that Ivo 
Taille-Bois had thrust into the succursal cell of 
Spalding were lugged and driven on shipboard, and 
there they were made fast under the hatches. 

As soon as they were all cleared out of the convent, 
Lord Hereward bade his Saxons put more fuel on the 
fire, and bring up more wine, and likewise see what might 
be in the buttery. The brother of Wybert the wright 
knew the way well both to cellar and buttery; and 
finding both well filled, he soon reappeared with wine 


116 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


and viands enough. And so Hereward and his men 
warmed themselves by the blazing fire, and ate and 
drank most merrily and abundantly; and when all 
had their fill, and all had drunk a deep health to 
Hereward the liberator, they went into the monks’ 
snug cells, and so fast to sleep. 

On the morrow morning they rose betimes. So 
featly had the thing been done over night, that none 
knew it but those who had been present. The good 
folk that yet remained in Spalding town, though so 
close at hand, had heard nothing of the matter. 
Hereward now summoned them to the house; but 
having his reasons for wishing not to be known at 
this present, he deputed one of his men to hold a 
conference with them, and to tell the few good men 
of Spalding that the hour of deliverance was at hand, 
that their false monks had been driven away, and 
that Father Adhelm and their true monks would soon 
return : whereat the Spalding folk heartily rejoiced. 
In the present state of the road, or rather of the 
waters, there was no fear of any Norman force ap¬ 
proaching the succursal cell. Therefore Lord Hereward 
ordered that much of his munition of war should be 
landed and deposited in the convent; and leaving 
therein all his armed men with Girolamo of Salerno, 
he embarked alone in the lightest of his barks, and 
went up the river as far as the point that was nearest 
to Brunn. There, leaving the bark and all the 
sailors, and taking with him nought but his sword and 
his fen-staff, and covering himself with an old and 
tattered seaman’s coat, he landed and struck across 
the fens, and walked, waded, leaped, and swam, until 
he came within sight of his own old manor house and 
the little township of Brunn. It was eventide, and 
the blue smoke was rising from the manor-house and 


HEREWARD GOES TO GET HIS OWN 117 

from the town, as peacefully as in the most peaceful 
days. Hereward stopped and looked upon the tranquil 
scene, as he had done so many times before at the 
same hour in the days of his youth, when returning 
homeward from some visit, or from some fowling in 
the fens ; and as he looked, all that had since passed 
became as a dream ; and then he whistled and stepped 
gaily forward, as if his father’s house was still his own 
house, and his father there to meet and bless him. 
But, alack ! his father was six feet under the sod of 
the churchyard, and a fierce Norman was in the house, 
with many men-at-arms. Awakening from his evening 
dream, and feeling that the invasion of England was 
no dream—the bloody battle of Hastings no dream— 
the death of his father no dream—and that it was a 
sad reality that he was a dispossessed man, barred out 
by force and by fraud from his own, the young Lord 
of Brunn avoided the direct path to the manor-house, 
and struck into a narrow sloppy lane which led into 
the township. As he came among the low houses, or 
huts, the good people were beginning to bar their 
doors for the night. 

‘ They will open,’ said Hereward, ‘ when they know 
who is come among them ! ’ 

He made straight for the abode of one who had 
been his foster-brother ; and he said as he entered it: 

‘ Be there true Saxon folk in the house ? ’ 

‘Yea,’ said the man of the house. 

‘Then wilt thou not be sorry to see Hereward the 
Saxon and thy foster-brother ’; and so saying he un¬ 
muffled himself and threw off his dirty ship cloak. 

And his foster-brother fell at his feet and kissed his 
hand, and hugged his knee, and said, ‘ Is it even my 
young Lord Hereward ? ’ and so wept for joy. 

‘It is even I,’ said the young Lord of Brunn; ‘it is 


118 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 

even I come back to get mine own, and to get back 
for every honest man his own. But honest men must 
up and help. Will the honest folk of Brunn strike a 
blow for Hereward and for themselves? Will the 
town-people, and my kith and kindred and friends in 
the old days, receive and acknowledge me ? * 

It was the wife of the foster-brother that was now 
kneeling and clasping Hereward’s knee, and that said : 

' The women of Brunn would brand every caitiff' in 
the township that did not throw up his cap and rejoice, 
and take his bill-hook and bow in his hand for the 
young Lord of Brunn ! ’ 

Every one of the notables was summoned presently ; 
and they all recognised Hereward as their true lord 
and leader, vowing at the same time that they would 
follow him into battle against the Normans, and do 
his bidding whatever it might be. Many were the 
times that Hereward was forced to put his finger upon 
his lip to recommend silence; for they all wanted 
to hail his return with hearty Saxon shouts, and he 
wanted to avoid rousing the Normans in the manor- 
house for the present. The welcome he received left 
him no room to doubt of the entire affection and devo¬ 
tion of the town-folk ; and the intelligence he gleaned 
was more satisfactory than he had anticipated. Raoul, a 
Norman knight, and, next to Ivo Taille-Bois, the most 
powerful and diabolical of all the Normans in or near 
to the fen-country, held the manor-house, and levied 
dues and fees in the township ; but many of those who 
dwelt in the neighbourhood, and who had held their 
lands under the last quiet old Lord of Brunn, had 
never submitted to the intruder, nor had Raoul and 
his men-at-arms been able to get at them in their 
islands among the fens and deep waters. There was 
John of the Bogs, who had kept his house and gear 


HEREVVARD GOES TO GET HIS OWN 119 

untouched, and who could muster a score or twain of 
lusty hinds, well armed with pikes and bill-hooks and 
bows ; there was Ralph of the Dyke, the chamberlain 
of the last Lord of Brunn, who had beaten off Raoul 
and his men-at-arms in a dozen encounters; there 
were other men, little less powerful than these two, 
who would be up and doing if Lord Hereward would 
only show himself, or only raise his little finger. The 
manor-house was well fortified and garrisoned; but 
what of that ? For Lord Hereward it should be 
stormed and taken, though it should cost a score or 
twain of lives. Here the young Lord of Brunn told 
them that he hoped to get back his house without 
wasting a single drop of the blood of any of them, 
inasmuch as he had practised men of war not far 
from hand, together with engines of war proper for 
sieges. He bade them spread far and near the news 
of his return : he begged them to do this cautiously, 
and to remain quiet until he should come back among 
them; in the meanwhile they might be making such 
preparations for war as their means allowed. To¬ 
morrow night it would be the full of moon: and as 
soon as the good town-folk should see the moon rising 
over Elsey Wood they might expect him and his 
force. And now he must take a short repast and a 
little sleep, so as to be able to commence his return 
to the Welland river before midnight. 

Long before midnight Hereward was on his way; 
but he travelled with much more ease than he had 
done in coming to Brunn, for his foster-brother and 
two other trusty men carried him in a boat the 
greater part of the way. 

Being again at Spalding, the approaches to which 
had been curiously strengthened, during his short 
absence, by Girolamo of Salerno, Hereward sent off 


120 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 

one of the barks for Ely to convey the news of his 
first success and the prisoners he had made to the 
Lord Abbat, and to bring back the good prior of 
Spalding to his own cell; he left one bark moored 
below Spalding to watch the lower part of the river, 
and prevent any but friendly boats from ascending 
(there was little danger of any Norman coming this 
way; but a good commander like the Lord of Brunn 
leaves nothing to chance, and neglects no precaution) ; 
and with the three other barks and Girolamo and 
twenty of his armed men he began to move up the 
river on the following morning. Ten men were left 
to hold the succursal cell, and protect the township 
of Spalding; and all such war-stores as were not 
immediately required were left in the convent. The 
three barks were to be moored near to the point of 
debarkation, so as to prevent any communication be¬ 
tween Crowland and Spalding, it being very ex¬ 
pedient to keep the intrusive monks at Crowland 
ignorant of what had passed and what was passing. 
True, these unholy Norman friars were feasting and 
keeping their Christmas, and were little likely to 
move out at such a season, or to take heed of any¬ 
thing that was happening beyond the walls of their 
own house : but Here ward, as we have said, neglected 
no precaution; and therefore it was that the Lord of 
Brunn was ever successful in war. 

When he and his troops landed at the bend of the 
river that was nearest to Brunn, it was made visible to all, 
and not without manifest astonishment, that Girolamo 
of Salerno could do many wondrous things. Under his 
direction light and shallow skerries, and boats made 
of wicker-work, and lined with skins, had been pre¬ 
pared ; and while these were capable of carrying men 
and stores across the deeper streams that lay between 


HEREWARD GOES TO GET HIS OWN 121 

the bend of the Welland and the town of Brunn, they 
were so light that they could easily be carried on 
the men’s shoulders. A catapult and another engine 
which Hereward had purchased in Flanders were 
taken to pieces in order to be carried in these boats 
and skerries; the more precious parts of the munition 
of war, which Girolamo had made with his own hands 
before embarking for England, were most carefully 
wrapped up in many cloths and skins, so that even 
in that wettest of countries they could not be wetted. 
There was one small package, a very small package 
was it, of which the dark stranger took especial care, 
carrying it himself, and telling Hereward that with 
its contents he could open the gates of the strongest 
of houses. 

Notwithstanding the weight of their arms, and of 
the other burdens they had to bear from one stream 
or mere to another, the whole party pushed steadily 
forward across the more than half-inundated fens; 
and although some of the men, not being native fen- 
men, were not practised in such travelling, and al¬ 
though some of them could not swim, they all reached 
in safety a broad dry dyke near to the back of the 
township of Brunn a good hour before the full moon 
began to rise over Elsey-Wood. Having seen every¬ 
thing safely landed, Hereward walked alone into the 
town, going straight to the house of his foster-brother. 
But before he got into the rambling street he was 
accosted by three tall Saxons, who said, f Is it our 
Lord Hereward ? ’ 

f Yea; and are ye ready to be stirring? Have ye 
collected a few true men that will strike a blow for 
the houseless Lord of Brunn ?’ 

f Thou shalt see, my Lord,’ said one of the three, 
who was no less a man than John of the Bogs, and 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


1 C)C) 

X 

clapping his hands thrice, three score and more 
Saxons armed with bows and bills, and some of them 
with swords and battle-axes, started forth from behind 
so many alders and willow-trees ; and at that moment 
the broad full moon showed her bright, full face over 
the bare trees of Elsey-Wood. The men had been 
well taught, and so they did not rend the air with a 
shout which might have startled the Normans in the 
manor-house; but every man of them, whether free¬ 
man or serf, knelt at Lord Hereward’s feet, and kissed 
his hand. 

The score of armed men and all that had been 
brought with them from Spalding were soon carried 
into town. A supper was all ready, and smoking on 
the table of Lord Hereward’s foster-brother. Every 
man was welcomed as one amongst brethren, albeit 
these simple-minded men of Brunn started and looked 
askance when they saw the dark stranger with the 
hooked nose and fiery eyes; and much they marvelled 
all when they heard the young Lord of Brunn talking 
with this stranger in an unknown tongue. 

‘Wouldst thou have possession of thine house to¬ 
night or to-morrow morning ? ’ said Girolamo. ‘ At 
the hazard of burning a part of it I could gain thee 
admittance in less than half an hour by means of my 
Greek fire.’ 

f I would not have a plank of the dear old place 
burned,’ said Here ward. ' I would rather delay my 
entrance till the morning.’ 

‘ Then this must be a busy night,’ replied the dark 
man. 

And a busy night it was; for lo ! in the morning, 
Avhen Raoul the Norman knight awoke from the 
deep sleep which had followed his heavy overnight’s 
carouse, and looked forth from his chamber in the 


HEREWARD GOES TO GET HIS OWN 123 


tower over the gateway of the manor-house, he saw 
what seemed another and a taller tower on the 
opposite side of the moat; and what seemed a bridge 
of boats laid across the moat; and in the tower were 
archers with their bows bent, and men-at-arms with 
swords and battle-axes. Raoul rubbed his eyes, and 
still seeing the same sight, thought it all magic or a 
dream. But there was more magic than this, for 
when he called up his sleepy household, and his care¬ 
less and over-confident men-at-arms, and went round 
the house, he saw another bridge of boats leading to 
the postern-gate at the back of the house, and beyond 
that bridge he saw a catapult with a score of armed 
men standing by it. But look where he would, there 
were armed men; the manor-house was surrounded, 
and surrounded in such fashion that there could be no 
egress from it, and small hope of defending it. The 
despairing Norman knight, therefore, went back to 
his tower over the gateway, and called a parley. 

‘ What would ye, O Saxons ? ’ said Raoul ; ‘ know 
ye not that ye are breaking the king’s peace ? Who 
is your leader, and what wants he ? ’ 

e l am their leader and lord,’ quoth Hereward, 
speaking from that marvellous wooden tower which 
Girolamo had caused to be raised; ‘ I am their leader 
and the Lord of Brunn, and all that I want is to get 
possession of my house and lands. So come forth, 
Norman, and fear not! Thou and thy men shall 
have quarter and kindly treatment. But if ye seek 
to resist, or let fly so much as one arrow upon these 
my good people, by all the saints of old England I 
will hang ye all on one gibbet.’ 

f What shall we do in this strait ? ’ said Raoul to 
his seneschal. 

‘ Take terms and surrender,’ quoth the seneschal; 


124 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 

'for the house cannot be defended against the host 
that is come against it, and against the engines of war 
that are raised against it. Three butts of that catapult 
would shiver the postern gate; that tower in front 
commands the battlements ; the bridges of boats will 
give access to every part of the walls. This could not 
be done in one short night, except by magic; but 
magic is not to be withstood by sinful men-at-arms, 
and our chaplain is gone to feast with the monks of 
Crowland. Moreover, O, Raoul, we have consumed 
nearly all our provisions in our own feastings, and so 
should starve in a day or two if we could hold out so 
long—but that is impossible.’ 

‘But,’ said Raoul, ‘be there not some twenty or 
thirty Norman lances no further off than in the town 
of Stamford ? ’ 

‘ But they cannot cross the wide watery fens; and 
if they were here they could not charge among these 
accursed bogs.’ 

‘’Tis all too true,’ quoth Raoul, ‘and therefore must 
we surrender.’ 

The Norman knight spoke again to Hereward, who 
stood on the tower, looking like the good soldier and 
great lord that he was; and Raoul bargained to give 
immediate admittance to the Saxons, if the Saxons 
would only grant life and liberty to him and his gar¬ 
rison, with permission to carry off such arms and pro¬ 
perty as were their own. 

‘Life and security of limb ye shall have,’ said Here- 
ward, ‘ and liberty ye shall have likewise when good 
King Harold comes back and peace is restored; but, 
in the meantime, I must have ye kept as hostages, and 
sent to Ely to do penance for your sins; your arms 
must remain with us who want them; but an ye brought 
any other property with ye beyond the clothes on your 


HERE WARD GOES TO GET HIS OWN 125 


backs, it shall be restored upon your solemn oaths that 
ye did not get it by robbery here in England ! ’ 

‘ These are harsh terms/ muttered Raoul; ‘ but, 
Saxon, thou art no knight.’ 

‘ I soon shall be one,’ quoth Hereward; ‘but that is 
nought to thee. So come out of mine house, and save 
me the trouble of hanging thee. Come out, I say, ye 
Norman thieves, and give me up mine own !’ 

And Raoul, seeing nothing better for it, pulled down 
a flag which some too confident wight had raised over 
the battlements; and the drawbridge being let down, 
and the front gate opened, he and all his Normans 
came forth and laid down their armour and their arms 
at the feet of Hereward the Saxon. 

Even thus did the young Lord of Brunn get his own 
again. 


CHAPTER IX 


ELFRIC THE EX-NOVICE, AND GIROLAMO OF SALERNO, 
PREPARE TO PLAY AT DEVILS 

A feast was prepared in the great hall of the manor- 
house, and the young Lord of Brunn was about sitting 
down to table with his kinsmen and the good friends 
that had rallied round him in the hour of need, when 
Elfric arrived at Brunn from the house of the Ladie 
Alftrude at Ey. To look at Lord Hereward’s glad 
countenance as he talked in a corner of the hall with 
the new comer, one would have thought that he had 
won a fairer house and a wider domain than those of 
his ancestors of which he had repossessed himself in the 
morning. And for that matter he had won or was win¬ 
ning his way to a better house and greater estate ; for 
had not the fair young heiress of Ey sent again to tell 
him that she abided by her troth-plight, and looked 
for him to come and rescue her from that burthensome 
and dishonouring protection of the Normans under 
which she had been living! The retainers of her father’s 
house, and all the hinds and serfs, were devoted to her 
and ready to receive the young Lord of Brunn as their 
own liege lord and deliverer. Her friends and neigh¬ 
bours had all been consulted, and would assemble in 
arms and meet Lord Hereward at any hour and place 
that it might suit him to name. Save some few men- 

at-arms that were at Crowland to protect the intrusive 
126 


CROWLAND DEVILS 


127 


Norman monks, there was no Norman force nearer to 
Ey than Stamford. The season of the year and all 
things were favourable for recovering the whole of the 
fen-country, and for driving the invaders from every 
country in the neighbourhood of the fens. 

After putting a few questions to Elfric, such as 
lovers usually put to their pages when they come from 
seeing their ladie-loves, Hereward asked what force 
there might be in Crowland Abbey. Elfric said that 
there might be one knight and from ten to fifteen 
men-at-arms; but then all the monks that had been 
so recently brought over from France were fighting 
men, at a pinch; and these intruders were from thirty 
to forty in number, and well provided with weapons 
and warlike harness. The young man also bade Lord 
Hereward reflect that the great house at Crowland 
was not like the cell at Spalding, but a lofty and 
very strong place, and built mostly of stone and 
brick. Elfric too had learned that Crowland was well 
stored with provisions, so that it might stand a long 
siege. 

f And yet/ said the Lord of Brunn, f it is upon the 
great house of Crowland that I would fain make my 
next attempt; and great in every way are the advan¬ 
tages that would follow the capture of that strong and 
holy place, and the immediate restoration of the true 
Saxon Lord Abbat and his dispossessed brethren.’ 

f My silly head hath been venturing to think of this/ 
said Elfric, f and I very believe that with the aid of 
Girolamo and with a little of that blue fire and stink¬ 
ing smoke which he hath the trick of making, I could 
drive knight, men-at-arms, and monks all out of the 
abbey without any loss or let to our good Saxons.’ 

f Why, what wouldst do ? ’ said Hereward. 

‘ Only this, my lord. I would make the Normans 


128 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


believe that all the blubber-devils of Crowland were 
come back to earth to drive them from the house/ 

' I see, yet do not fully comprehend/ said Lord 
Here ward; 'but we will talk of these things with 
Girolamo to-night, when this my first feast as Lord of 
Brunn is over, and when every Saxon shall have seen 
that the hospitality of mine ancestors is not to know 
decrease in me/ 

And late that night, when Hereward’s first and most 
bountiful feast was over, and when his guests had be¬ 
taken themselves to the town of Brunn, or to their 
beds or to clean hay and rushes in the manor-house, 
Elfric and Girolamo followed Hereward to his inner 
chamber, and consulted with him about the best means 
of driving out the French from Crowland. First cross¬ 
ing himself—for although he feared not man, he had a 
lively dread of all manner of goblins and demons—the 
Lord of Brunn said, 'Elfric, thou mayest now tell us 
about thy Crowland devils/ 

' You wist well, my lord/ said Elfric, ' for who should 
know it better, that in the heathenish times the whole 
of the isle of Crowland and all the bogs and pools 
round about were haunted day and night, but most at 
night, by unaccountable troops and legions of devils, 
with blubber-lips, fiery mouths, scaley faces, beetle 
heads, sharp long teeth, long chins, hoarse throats, 
black skins, hump shoulders, big bellies, burning loins, 
bandy legs, cloven hoofs for feet, and long tails at 
their buttocks. And who so well as your lordship 
knoweth that these blubber-fiends, angered at that 
their fens and stinking pools should be invaded, 
allowed our first monks of Crowland no peace nor truce, 
but were for ever gibing and mowing at them, biting 
them with their sharp teeth, switching them with their 
filthy tails, putting dirt in their meat and drink, nipping 


CROWLAND DEVILS 129 

them by the nose, giving them cramps and rheums and 
shivering agues and burning fevers, and fustigating 
and tormenting not a few of the friars even to death ! 
And your lordship knows that these devils of Crowland 
were not driven away until the time when that very 
pious man Guthlacus became a hermit there, and cut 
the sluices that lead from the fetid pools to the flowing 
rivers. Then, in sooth, the devils of Crowland were 
beaten off by prayer and by holy water, and the 
horrible blue lights which they were wont to light 
upon the most fetid of the pools, ceased to be seen of 
men.’ 

f All this legend I know full well/ said the Lord of 
Brunn, explaining it to Girolamo of Salerno, who 
crossed himself many times as he heard the descrip¬ 
tion of the very hideous Crowland devils. 

e All that dwell in the fen-country know the legend/ 
continued Elfric; ( the house of Crowland is full of 
the legend, and the usurping Norman crew must 
know the legend well, and in the guilt of their con¬ 
science must needs tremble at it! The devils are 
painted in cloister and corridor, their blue lights are 
painted, as they used to appear to our first good 
monks; iand the most pious anchorite Guthlacus is 
depicted in the act of laying the evil ones. If a 
Saxon saint laid them, these Norman sinners have 
done enough to bring them back again; and it can 
only be by the bones of our saints and the other 
Saxon relics that lie in the church of Crowland, that 
the devils of Crowland are prevented from returning. 
Now all that I would do is this: I would haunt the 
house and the fens round about with sham devils, 
and so make these Norman intruders believe that the 
old real blubber-fiends were upon them ! I do not 
believe they would stand two days and nights of such 


i 


130 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


a siege as I could give them, if your lordship would 
but consent and Girolamo lend his aid.’ 

c But were it not sinful for christened Saxon men to 
play at devils ? ’ 

f Assuredly not, when playing against devils like 
these Normans, and for a holy end, and for the 
restoration of such good men and true Saxons as 
my Lord Abbat of Crowland and his expelled brother¬ 
hood.’ 

Hereward put the question, as a case of conscience, 
to Girolamo, as vir bonus et sapiens, a good man and 
learned; and Girolamo was of opinion that, as the 
wicked ofttimes put on the semblance of saints to do 
mischief, the good might, with certain restrictions, be 
allowed to put on the semblance of devils to do good. 
His patron Hereward, he said, would give him credit 
for being a true believer, and a devout, though weak 
and sinful, son of the church, yet would he think it no 
sin to play the part of a Crowland devil, or to give to 
Elfric the benefit of his science in making ghastly blue 
lights, or in causing flames to appear on the surface of 
the stagnant waters, or in fact in doing anything that 
might be required of him in order to scare away the 
Normans. Hereward had still some misgivings, but he 
yielded to the representations of Elfric and the exceed¬ 
ing great earnestness of Girolamo; and when he dis¬ 
missed them for the night he said : 

f Well, since you will have it so, go and play at devils 
in Crowland. Only have a care that ye be not taken or 
slain, and be back to this house as soon as ye can ; for 
if Crowland cannot be taken, we must try and blockade 
it, and proceed to Ey to collect more strength.’ 

f I have good hope, my lord,’ said Girolamo; ' for 
with my white magic I can do things that will carry 
terror to the hearts of these untaught Normans; and 


CROWLAND DEVILS 


131 


then this young man Elfric hath ever succeeded in 
all that he hath attempted: he already knoweth 
enough of my language (thanks to the little Latin 
he got as a novice) to make out my meaning and to 
act as my interpreter to others. He tells me that 
even should the devil experiment fail, he can assure 
our retreat, with scarcely any chance of danger.’ 

‘ Then go, Girolamo, and take with thee such men 
and boats and other appliances as thou mayest need. 
But have a care, for I have work on hand that cannot 
be done without thee; and if I lose Elfric I lose the 
nimblest-witted of all my Saxons. So good night, and 
may the blessed saints go with you both, although you 
be dressed in devils’ skin ! ’ 

c Brother devil, that is to be,’ said Elfric to the 
Salernitan, ‘ there be bulls’ hides and bulls’ horns in 
the out-houses; and good coils of iron chain in the 
kitchen, to do the clanking.’ 

f Boy,’ said Girolamo, f thou hast but a vulgar idea 
about demons ! Dost think I am going to make jack¬ 
pudding devils, such as are gazed at at wakes and 
country fairs ? No, no ; I will give you devils of another 
sort, I guess. But leave all that to me, and apply your 
own mind to the means of getting into the house at 
Crowland or of establishing a correspondence therein, 
so that the Normans may be devil-ridden inside as well 
as outside.’ 

f And do thou, great master Girolamo, leave that to 
me,’ said Elfric, f for I know some that are within the 
house of Crowland that would face the real devil and 
all his legions for the chance of driving out the French 
abbat and friars; and if I myself do not know every 
dark corner, every underground passage, and every 
hiding-hole in and about the house, why there is no 
one living that hath such knowledge.’ 


132 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


Here the two separated. The young Saxon lay 
down on some rushes near the door of Lord Hereward’s 
chamber, and pulling his cloak over his face was soon 
fast asleep : the Salernitan, who had a chamber all to 
himself, sat up till a late hour among the packages and 
vessels he had brought with him : and yet was he 
ready to start on his journey for Crowland at the first 
glimpse of day. Those who entered his room in the 
morning, just after he was gone, smelt a strong smell 
of sulphur: and, sorely to Girolamo’s cost, some louts 
remembered this smell at a later season. 


CHAPTER X 


< THE HOUSE AT CROWLAND 

Compared with Crowland, Ely was quite a dry place : 
there the abbey church and conventual buildings stood 
upon a hill and on firm hard ground; but here all the 
edifices stood upon piles driven into the bog, and 
instead of a high and dry hill, there was nothing but 
a dead wet flat, and, unless in those parts where the 
monastery and the town stood, the ground was so rot¬ 
ten and boggy that a pole might be thrust down thirty 
feet deep. Next to the church was a grove of alders, 
but there was nothing else round about but water and 
bogs, and the reeds that grow in water. In short this 
Crowland, both in the situation and nature of the 
place, was a marvel even in the fen-country; and, 
certes, it was different from all places in any other 
part of England. Lying in the worst part of the fens, 
it was so enclosed and encompassed with deep bogs 
and pools, that there was no access to it except on the 
north and east sides, and there too only by narrow 
causeways. Even in the summer season the cattle 
and flocks were kept at a great distance, there being 
no pasture-land upon which they could be placed with¬ 
out danger of seeing them swallowed up ; so that when 
the owners would milk their cows they went in boats, 
by them called skerries, and so small that they would 
carry but two men and their milk-pails. There was 

133 


134 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


no corn growing within five miles of Crowland. The 
greatest gain was from the fish and wild-ducks that 
were caught; and the ducks were so many that the 
Crowland fowlers could at times drive into a single 
net three thousand ducks at once; and so the good 
people called these pools their real corn-fields. For 
this liberty of fishing and fowling they paid yearly to 
the Lord Abbat a very round sum of money: and, we 
ween, the abbat and the monks had ever the choice of 
the best fowls and fishes they caught. That holy man 
Guthlacus, who had laid the Crowland devils, and who 
had cut the sluices that led from the fetid pools to the 
flowing rivers, had also made the causeways which 
gave access to the town and monastery. Those narrow" 
but solid roads of wood and gravel ran across the 
deepest marshes, and had willows and alders growing 
on either side of them : they were marvellous works 
for the times; and do we not see in our own day a 
pyramidal stone on the causeway leading to the north, 
inscribed with the name of Guthlacus ? Much had 
this beatified anchorite done to alter the face of the 
country; yet many of the foulest pools remained, and 
could not be purified. The town was separated from 
the abbey by a broad stream, and three other streams 
or water-courses flowed through the town, separating 
the streets from each other; the streets were planted 
with willows; and the houses raised on piles driven 
into the bottom of the bog; and the people of one 
street communicated with the people of another street 
by means of light flying-bridges or by means of their 
skerries. A bold people they were, and hardy and 
dexterous withal, for their lives were spent in hazard¬ 
ous fowling and fishing, and in toiling over measure¬ 
less waters and quagmires. Fenners must be bold 
and expert men, or they must starve. Moreover the 


THE HOUSE AT CROWLAND 135 

folk of Crowland town were very devout and constant 
in their worship of the Saxon saints and had a laud¬ 
able affection for their dispossessed Saxon monks and 
Lord Abbat: although in the time of King Edward, 
of happy memory, when they knew not what real 
sorrow or trouble was, they would at times murmur 
to my Lord Abbat’s chamberlain about the money 
they were called upon to pay, and at times they would 
even quarrel lustily with the purveyors of the house 
about eels and wild-ducks, pikes and herons, and such 
like trivialities. But the usurping abbat from France 
had already nearly doubled their rents and dues, and 
for every fish or fowl that the Saxon purveyors had 
claimed, the Norman purveyors laid their hands upon 
a dozen. Ye may judge, therefore, whether the good 
folk of Crowland town did not abhor the Norman 
monks and wish them gone. 

In turning away the good Lord Abbat and all his 
ohedientiarii or officials, and all his superior monks, 
the intruders had left in the house a few inferior 
monks, and about half a score of servientes and lay- 
brothers to hew their wood and draw their water. 
And they had so overwrought these Saxon laics, and 
had so taunted and vilipended them, that the poor 
hinds, one and all, wished them in the bottomless 
pit. 

On the night after Lord Hereward’s feast at Brunn 
and the fifth night from the festival of the Nativity, 
Alain of Beauvais, the intrusive abbat, was feasting 
in the hall with his Norman friars, who had never 
passed through a noviciate, and with his Norman 
men-at-arms, who were neither more nor less godly 
than his monks. One or two of the English laics 
were waiting upon these their lords and masters; the 
other lay-brothers were supposed to be gone to their 


136 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


straw beds. Alain the pseudo-abbat, being warm 
with wine, was talking in the manner of all French¬ 
men about dames and demoiselles, and was telling 
his company what a sweet lady it was that broke her 
heart when he first left Beauvais to seek his fortune 
with Duke William. Just at this juncture of time 
there came into the hall an invisible devil in the 
essence of a stink. It was such a stench as mortal 
nose had never smelt before—it was so intense, so 
foul and diabolical, that no mortal man could bear 
it long ! Alain the pseudo-abbat, putting both his 
hands to his nose, said, f Notre Dame de la miseri- 
corde ! what smell is this ? ’ They all put their 
hands to their nostrils, and roared ‘ What stink is 
this ? ’ 

Before the English lay-brothers could make any 
answer, the foul smell, which kept growing stronger, 
was accompanied by a terrible rumbling noise :—and 
then there came most violent gusts of wind, which 
extinguished all the lamps, cressets, torches, and 
candles; and then, upon the darkness of the hall, 
there burst a livid, ghastly, blue light, and above and 
below, from side to side, the hall seemed filled with 
streaming blue flames, and still that atrocious stench 
grew stronger and stronger ! Abbat, monks, men-at- 
arms, and all, rushed out of the hall, some crying 
that it was the eve of the day of judgment, and some 
roaring that it must be the devils of Crowland come 
back again. Outside the hall, in the darkened corri¬ 
dor (and by this time there was not a single lamp 
left burning in any part of the house, but only the 
altar-lights in the church) they ran against and 

stumbled over other Frenchmen who were running 

© 

up from the inferior offices and from the stables, for 
they had all and several been driven away by blue 


THE HOUSE AT C ROWLAND 137 

lights and foul smells; and every mother’s son of 
them believed that the Crowland devils had been sent 
to dispossess them and drive them back to Normandie. 
The corridor was long and straight, but as dark as 
pitch; some fell in their flight and rolled the one 
over the other, and some stood stock still and silent 
as stocks, save that their knees knocked together and 
their teeth chattered; and some ran forward howling 
for mercj, and confessing their sins to that hell- 
darkness. But, when near the end of the long dark 
passage, a French monk and a man-at-arms that ran 
the foremost of them all fell through the flooring 
with a hideous crash, and were heard shrieking, from 
some unexplored regions below, that the fiends had 
gotten them—that the devils of Crowland were whirl¬ 
ing them off to the bottomless pit ! The pit or fetid 
pool into which these two evil-doers were thrown was 
not bottomless, though deep; yet I wist nothing was 
ever more seen either of that monk or of that man- 
at-arms. As these piercing shrieks were heard from 
below, the Normans roared in the corridor—some 
blaspheming and cursing the day and hour that they 
came to England, others praying to be forgiven, with 
many a Libera nos! and Salve! and others gnashing 
their teeth and yelling like maniacs. But some there 
were that made no noise at all, for they had swooned 
through excess of fear. 

And now there came an exceeding bright light from 
the chasm in the floor through which the monk and 
the man-at-arms had fallen; but the light, though 
bright, was still of a ghastly blue tinge ; and by 
that light full twenty devils, or it might be more, 
were seen ascending and descending to and from 
the flaming pit, or chasm in the floor. Some of 
these fiends had blubber-lips, beetle heads, humped 


138 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 

shoulders, and bandy legs, and were hirsute and 
black as soot; others of them were red and altogether 
shapeless ; others were round and yellow; but all 
their visages were most irregular and frightful, and 
they had all long tails tipped with fire, and flashes of 
red, green, and yellow flames came out of the mouths 
of every one of them. As for hoarse throats, no 
voices could be hoarser and more dreadful than the 
voices of these blubber-fiends as they went up and 
down the pit, like buckets in a well, or as they roared 
in the dark cavities under the passage, and beneath 
the very place where the Normans lay huddled. The 
intrusive abbat tried to say a De profundis, but the 
words stuck in his throat, not being very familiar 
with that passage. 

By degrees that exceeding bright light from the 
chasm in the floor died away, leaving the corridor as 
black as Erebus. c An we could but get to the church 
door/ said one of the false monks, ‘we might be 
safe! Will no man try ?—Is there no brave man-at- 
arms that will adventure along this passage and see 
whether we can cross that chasm and get out of it ? ’ 

The men-at-arms thought that this was a reconnais¬ 
sance to be more properly made by monks, who were 
supposed to know more about the devil and his ways 
than did plain soldiers; nevertheless several of them 
said they would adventure, if they had but their 
swords or their pikes with them. But they had all 
left their weapons in their several lodgings; and so, 
not one of them would budge. The darkness con¬ 
tinued, but the voices which had been roaring below 
ground ceased. At last Alain of Beauvais, fortifying 
himself with such short prayers and Latin interjections 
as he could recollect, and crossing himself many score 
times, resolved to go along the dark passage and try 


THE HOUSE AT CROWLAND 139 

whether there could be an exit from it. Slowly he 
went upon his hands and knees, groping and feeling 
the floor with his hands, and now and then rapping on 
the floor with his fist to essay whether it was sound. 
Thus this unrighteous intruder went on groping and 
rapping in the dark until he came close to the edge of 
the chasm. Then a quivering blue light shot out of 
the pit, and then—monstrum horrendum! a head, 
bigger than the heads of ten mortal men, and that 
seemed all fire and flame within, rose up close to the 
intrusive abbat’s nose, and a sharp shrill voice was 
heard to say in good Norman French, f Come up, my 
fiends, from your sombre abodes ! Come up and clutch 
me my long while servant and slave Alain of Beauvais !’ 

The intrusive abbat rushed back screaming, and fell 
swooning among the swooned. Again the long corri¬ 
dor was filled with that intense and intolerable blue 
light, and again the blubber-fiends ascended and de¬ 
scended like buckets in a well, and again the horrible 
noise was heard below, and the devil that spoke the 
good Norman French was heard shouting, f Devil 
Astaroth, art thou ready ? Devil Balberith, hast thou 
lit thy fires on the top of the waters ? Devil Alocco, 
are thy pools all ready to receive these Norman 
sinners ? Fiends of the fen, are your torches all pre¬ 
pared ? Fire fiends, are ye ready with your unquench¬ 
able fires ? Incubuses and succubuses, demons, devils, 
and develings all, are ye ready ? * And the hoarse 
voices, sounding as if they came from the bowels of 
the earth, roared more fearfully than before; and one 
loud shrill voice, that sounded as if close to the mouth 
of the pit, said in good Norman French, ‘ Yea, great 
devil of Crowland, we be all ready ! ’ 

*’Tis well/ said the other voice, 'then set fire to 
every part of this once holy building, over which the 


140 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


sins of these Norman intruders have given us power ! 
Fire it from porch to roof-tree, and if they will seek 
to abide here, let them perish in the flames, and be 
buried under the cinders and ashes.’ 

‘ If the devil had spoken Saxon,’ said one of the 
monks, ‘ I should have known nought of his meaning, 
but since he parleys in Norman, it is not I that will 
neglect his warning ! ’ 

And rushing back into the hall where they had 
so lately been feasting, and bursting open one of 
the windows, this well-advised intruder leaped from 
the window into the stinking moat. As when a 
frighted ram is seized by the horns and dragged by 
the shepherd hind through the brake, all the silly 
flock, that could not move before, follow him one 
by one, even so did our Norman monks and men-at- 
arms follow the first monk through the window 
and into the foul moat! Such as had swooned were 
brought, if not to their senses, to the use of their legs 
and arms, by the renewal of that exceeding bright 
light, or by the pinches and twitches of their com¬ 
rades, which they took for pinchings of the devil— 
roaring accordingly. But in a wondrously short space 
of time every one of the intruders was outside of the 
house, and was either sprawling in the foul moat, or 
wading through muck and mud towards the firm, dry 
causeway. There was great peril of drowning or of 
being suffocated in the bogs; nor were they yet free 
from the supernatural terrors, for ghastly blue fires 
were burning on the surface of sundry of the deeper 
pools, and there was an overpowering stench of sul¬ 
phur. Not one of them doubted but that the lights 
were from hell; yet, truth to say, those blue flames 
showed them how to avoid the deep pools in which 
they might have been drowned, and how to find their 


THE HOUSE AT CROW LAND 141 

way to the causeway ; for the moon had not yet risen, 
and except when illuminated by these unearthly lights 
the fens were as dark as chaos. When they had 
floundered a long while in the mud and fen-bogs, 
they got to the firm and dry causeway which the holy 
Guthlacus had made for the use of better men. They 
were so exhausted by the fatigue, fright, and agony of 
mind they had undergone, that they all threw them¬ 
selves flat upon the narrow road, and there lay in 
their soaked clothes, and shivering in the cold winds 
of night. They were still so near to Crowland that 
they could see bright lights, with nothing blue or 
unearthly about them, streaming from the windows 
of the abbey and from almost every house in the 
township, and could very distinctly hear the ringing 
of the church bells and the shouting of triumphant 
voices. 

f The like of this hath not been seen or heard/ said 
Alain of Beauvais; f the serfs of Crowland are in 
league with the devils of Crowland ! The Saxon 
rebels to King William have called the demons to 
their assistance ! ’ 

f Nothing so clear,’ said one of the men-at-arms, 
* but let my advice be taken. The moon is rising 
now, therefore let us rise and follow the road that lies 
before us, and endeavour to get out of these infernal 
fens to the town of Huntingdon or to the castle at 
Cam-Bridge, or to some other place where there be 
Normans and Christians. If the men of Crowland 
should come after us, Saxons and slaves as they are, 
they may drive us from this causeway to perish in the 
bogs, or cut us to pieces upon the narrow road, for we 
have not so much as a single sword among us all ! ’ 

c We have nothing/ groaned Alain of Beauvais. 

c Ay/ grunted one of his friars, ( we brought little 



142 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


with us and assuredly we take less away with us! 
We be poorer than when we came and drove the 
English abbat out of his house with nought but his 
missal and breviary/ 

‘ But we men-of-war depart much poorer than we 
came/ said one of the soldiers ; ‘ for each of us brought 
a good stout English horse with him, and arms and 
armour—and all these are left to the devils of Crow- 
land ; and we shall all be laughed at for being 
devil-beaten, though how r men-at-arms can contend 
with demons I cannot discover. But hark ! what new 
din is that ? ’ 

The din was a roar of voices proceeding from Crow- 
land town. It soon came nearer, and still nearer; 
and then the hurried trampling of many feet, and the 
tramp of horses as well as of men, were heard along 
the causeway; and, as the moon shone out, the head 
of a dense moving column w r as seen on the narrow 
road, and sundry skerries or light skiffs were seen 
gliding along the canals or broad ditches which ran 
on either side the causeway; and shouts were heard 
of f Here ward for England ! Hereward for England ! ’ 

Hereupon the Normans all rose from the cold 
ground, and began to run with all the speed and 
strength that was left in them along the narrow road, 
the hindmost hardly ever ceasing to cry ‘ Misericordia/ 
or c Have pity upon us, gentle Saxons ! * But run 
as they would, the cry of f Hereward for England ’ 
was close behind them; and the horses, being put 
into a trot, broke in among them. More than one 
of the men-at-arms had the mortification of being 
knocked down and ridden over by a Crowland man 
mounted on his own war-horse; several of the monks 
got fresh immersions in the canals. Had the Saxons 
so disposed, not a Norman of all that company would 


THE HOUSE AT CROW LAND 143 


have escaped with his life, for they were all as helpless 
as babes in their swaddling-clothes. But Hereward 
of the true English heart had conjured Elfric and 
the Salernitan to shed as little blood and destroy 
as few lives as possible; and Girolamo well knew 
that the terror and panic these fugitives would carry 
into whatsoever Norman camp or station they went 
would do far more good to the good cause than was to 
be done by despatching or by making prisoners of 
this score or two of obscure rogues. 

Thus Elfric, who led the van on a stately horse, 
called a halt when he had carried his pursuit to some 
three miles from Crowland abbey. 

‘And now,’ said he, ‘with the permission of good 
Guthlacus, we will cut such a trench as shall prevent 
these robbers from returning to Crowland. So dig 
and pull away, ye lusty fenners and nimble boys of 
Crowland that lately made such good sham devils ! 
Dig away for one good hour by this bright moonlight, 
and to-morrow ye may make the trench broader and 
deeper by daylight! Oh, Guthlacus, we will repair 
thy good work when the good times come back again, 
and when honest men may walk along the road in 
peace, without any fear of Norman cut-throats ! ’ 

Tw r o score and more lusty hinds came forward with 
axes and spades and mattocks; and within the hour 
a trench was dug quite broad and deep enough to 
stop the march of any heavily armed man or war- 
horse. The Saxons then returned to Crowland, and 
as they went they sang in chorus a joyous war-song, 
and shouted ‘ Hereward for England ! ’ 

Girolamo the Salernitan, who had remained in the 
abbey with the Saxon lay-brothers, had put the house 
so completely in order and had so cleansed it of the 
foul odours he had made by his art, and had so 


144 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


sweetened it with frankincense brought from the 
church, and with barks and fragrant spirits taken 
from his own packets, that no man could have con¬ 
ceived that anything extraordinary had taken place. 
Save that the good Lord Abbat and his cloister 
monks were missing, the whole house looked just as 
it did before the Normans broke in upon it and drove 
aw'ay the Lord Abbat and his brethren. Honest and 
merry English voices rang again through hall, corridor, 
and cloister, instead of Norman speech that whistles 
in the nose; and Saxon saints were once more in¬ 
voked instead of the unknown saints of France. 

Other men had been busy in the house besides the 
Salernitan and his assistants. No joyful occurrence 
ever took place among the Saxons without its being 
noted by a feast—provided only that such good 
Saxons had wherewith to feast upon. The Normans 
had gone off in much tbo great a hurry to think of 
taking anything with them. In the buttery remained, 
among other rich drinking-horns, all carved and 
ornamented with silver, that famed horn which Witlaf, 
king of Mercia, had given from his own table to 
Crowland monastery, in order that the elder monks 
might drink thereout on festivals, and in their bene¬ 
dictions remember sometimes the soul of the donor. 
It was a mighty large horn, such as became a great 
king: and it was an ancient custom of the house 
that when any new Lord Abbat came, they filled the 
horn with strong wine, and offered to him to drink, 
and if he happened to drink it all off cheerfully, 
they promised to themselves a noble Lord Abbat and 
many good years in his time. Now for this high 
festival the subcellarer brought forth this ancient 
and royal drinking-horn, which held twice the quan¬ 
tity of our modern horns; and in order that there 


THE HOUSE AT CROW LAND 145 

might be no delay in filling it, the good subcellarer 
caused to be brought up from below an entire cask of 
wine, and as soon as the cask was in the refectory 
the head of it was stove in. Old Robin the cook, 
who had been pastor and master in the art culinary 
to that good cook of Spalding, had so bestirred him¬ 
self, and had put so many other hands and feet in 
motion, that , there was a good supper ready for all of 
the house, and all of the town, and all of the vicinage 
of Crowland who had been aiding in the good work 
of disseising, now so happily accomplished; and by 
the time Elfric and his friends got back to the 
monastery, the feast was ready. The thin and dark 
Salernitan, being but a puny eater and no drinker, 
and not fully versed in our vernacular, partook only 
of three or four dishes and of one cup of wine; and 
then went straight to the bed which had been pre¬ 
pared for him. The homely Saxons felt a relief when 
he was gone. They sent the wine round faster, and 
began to discourse of the wonders they had done and 
seen. Elfric gave thanks to the lay-brothers of the 
house without whose aid the sham devils of Crowland 
could never have gotten within the house. 

{ And how suitably attired ! ’ said Roger the tailor. 

f Yet what nimble devils we were ! ’ said Orson the 
smith. 

‘ What vizards ! what tails ! That thin dark 
stranger made the vizards ; but it was I that made 
the tails, and proud am I of the work ! How they 
twisted! How lism they were! How I switched 
mine about by pulling the strings under my jerkin ! ’ 

‘ I wish,’ said Hob the carpenter, c that thou hadst 
not switched thy devil’s tail into mine eye as I was 
coming up after thee through the trap-door. That 
trap-door was a good device, and it was all mine own ; 


K 


146 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


for who went and cut away the beams just at the 
right time but Hob ? ’ 

'All did well/ said Elfric, 'but there were some 
that did wondrously. Colin Rush, thou madest a 
very pretty nimble devil! Hugh, thy roar was per¬ 
fection ! Joseph the novice, thou wast so terrible a 
devil to look upon, that although I dressed thee 
myself, I was more than half afraid of thee ! ’ 

'And 1/ responded Joseph, 'was wholly terrified 
at thee, master Elfric ! nor can I yet make out how 
thou didst contrive to throw about all that fire and 
flame, through eyes, mouth, and nostrils, without 
burning thy big vizard. Hodge the miller set fire to 
his big head and burned it to pieces, and so could do 
nothing but stay below in the cellar and help in the 
roaring.’ 

' And not much did I like that dark underground 
place/ quoth Hodge : ' and when the lights were all 
out, and goodman Hugh, groping his way in the 
dark, caught my tail in his hand and pulled it till it 
nearly came away from my breech, I ’gan fancy that 
the Crowland devils were angered, and that some 
real devil was going to haul me off! I wot that the 
roar I then gave was quite in earnest! My flesh 
still quivers, and ice comes over my heart as I think 
of it! ’ 

‘ Then melt thine ice with good warm wine/ said 
Elfric, pushing him a cup: ' I thought thou hadst 
known that all the Crowland devils had been laid for 
aye by the good Guthlacus, and that thou hadst had 
nothing to fear whilst engaged in so good a work and 
all for the service of thy liege lord the abbat, and for 
the honour and service of the church and the liberties 
of England. Did I not besprinkle thee with holy 
water before thou didst don thy devil-skin ? * 


THE HOUSE AT CROWLAND 147 

‘ For my part/ said another, ‘what most feared 
me was that awful stench! I was told, that as a 
devil I must not cough, but help coughing I could 
not as I stirred up the pan over the charcoal fire, 
and kept throwing in the foul drugs the dark stranger 
gave me to throw in. In sooth I neither frisked 
about nor hauled myself up by the rope over the 
trap-door; nor did I howl, nor did I help to carry 
the blue links and torches; but the stinking part did 
I all myself, and I think I may be proud of it! Not 
to defraud an honest man and good artisan of his 
due, I may say it was Hob the carpenter that bored 
the holes through the floor so that the incense might 
rise right under our Norman abbat’s nose; but for 
all the rest it was I that did it. That hell-broth still 
stinks in the nose of my memory. Prithee, another 
cup of wine, that I may forget it/ 

‘Well/ said old Gaffer the tithing-man of Crowland, 
‘ we have done the thing, and I hope it hath been 
honestly done; and without offence to the saints or to 
the beatified Guthlacus/ 

‘ Never doubt it/ quoth Elfric : ‘ the Norman spoilers 
and oppressors are gone to a man, and as naked as 
they came. I, the humble friend and follower of my 
Lord Hereward the liberator, am here to dispense 
hospitality to-night; your own Lord Abbat will be 
here in a few days; and the dread of our demons of 
the fens and Crowland devils will make the invaders 
run from all the fen country. So much good could 
not have come out of evil; if the means employed had 
been unlawful or in any way sinful, we should have 
failed, and never have met with such easy and com¬ 
plete success.’ 

‘Nevertheless/ continued Gaffer, ‘the things which 
I have seen fill me with doubt and amaze. Who ever 


] 48 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


saw the like before ? Fire burning upon the top of 
water, flames not to be quenched by water from below 
nor by water from above! Smoke and flames not of 
their natural colours, but blue, and green, and scarlet, 
and bright yellow ! and the light from these flames so 
dazzling and so ghastly! In truth I wot not how this 
can be done by mortal man ! * 

* Nor wot 1/ said Elfric, ' but this I know full well, 
that there was no magic or sortilege in the prepara¬ 
tion, and that the stranger is as good and devout a 
Christian as any that dwells in the land. Many are 
the things which I have seen done by the hand of 
man that I cannot understand; but am I therefore to 
think that the Evil One hath a finger in them ? I have 
carried on my back, and have handled with mine own 
hands, the liquids and the substances which have been 
used, and yet have felt neither cramp nor any other 
ache. And plain homely things those substances and 
liquids do appear to be—the quietest and dullest trash 
until mixed together and compounded. Girolamo, 
who hath studied in the schools in foreign parts, even 
as our young clerks studied at Cam-Bridge before 
the detestable Normans came and built their donjon 
there, calls this art of compounding by the name of 
Chemeia, or Chimia, and he says that things much 
more wondrous are to be done by it. Further, he 
says, that his own proficiency has been acquired by 
long fasting and diligent study, by prayers to heaven 
and votive offerings to the saints. Methinks it were 
better to give God credit for these inventions and 
combinations, and for the wit and ingenuity of man, 
than to be always attributing them to the devil, as 
our uninformed clowns do.’ But these last words the 
ex-novice spoke under his breath. f And this also do 
I know—the stranger sprinkled his powders with holy 


* 



THE HOUSE AT CROW LAND 149 

water, and prayed the prayers of our church all the 
while he was doing his preparations.’ 

f But what makes him look so grim and black, and 
so wild about the eyes,’ said the old cook. 

‘ Nothing but sorrow and anxiety, sun and climate,’ 
replied Elfric. ( In the country of the south where 
he was born there be no blue eyes or flaxen heads of 
hair; and the Normans drove him from his home and 
seized his house and lands, even as they are now 
doing with Englishmen; and he hath known long 
captivity and cruel torture, and hath wandered in 
the far climates of the East where the hand of the 
Arab is lifted against every man.’ 

f Well,’ said Hob the carpenter, f two things are 
clear—the Normans are gone from Crowland, and we 
have gotten their wine butts. And, therefore, I 
submit to this good company that we should leave 
off talking and be jolly. Goodman Hodge, pass me 
down the cup.’ 


CHAPTER XI 

* 

THE LINDEN-GROVE AND LADIE ALFTRUDE 

The restored Lord of Brunn, having done so much in 
a few days, made full report thereof unto the good 
Lord Abbat and the great prelates and Saxon thanes 
that had made the isle of Ely and the Camp of Refuge 
their homes. Right joyous was the news; and prudent 
and unanimous were the counsels which followed it. 
The Abbat of Crowland and the Prior of Spalding, 
and such of their monks as had gone with them or 
followed them to Ely to escape from the oppression of 
Ivo Taille-Bois, now, without loss of time, returned to 
the banks of the Welland. 

The abbat and the prior were soon comfortably re¬ 
established in their several houses ; the rest of the 
expelled monks came flocking back to their cells, 
and the good Saxon fen-men began to renew their 
pilgrimages to the shrines. Many pilgrims too came 
from the countries bordering on the fens ; and while 
some of these men remained to fight under the Lord 
of Brunn, others going back to their homes carried 
with them the glad intelligence that the Camp of 
Refuge was more unassailable than it had ever been, 
and that a most powerful Saxon league was forming 
for the total expulsion of the Normans from England. 

Besides his own dependence and the chiefs of his 
own kindred, many Saxon hinds, and not a few chiefs 

150 


LINDEN-GROVE AND LADIE ALFTRUDE 151 

of name, began now to repair to Here ward’s standard. 
There came his old brother-in-arms Winter of Wisbech, 
who had never touched the mailed hand of the con¬ 
queror in sign of peace and submission; there came 
his distant relative Gherik, who bore on his brow the 
broad scar of an almost deadly wound he had gotten 
at Hastings; there came Alfric and Rudgang, and 
Sexwold and Siward Beorn, that true Saxon soldier 
who had formerly been a companion to Edgar Etheling 
in his flight, and who had come back from Scotland 
because he could not bear to live in ease and plenty 
while his country was oppressed. Not one of these 
Saxon warriors but would stand against three Normans 
on foot! Here ward afterward gave proof, and more 
times than once, that he could keep his ground 
against seven ! As for the hungry outlandish men 
the Conqueror was bringing from all the countries in 
southern Europe, to help him to do that which he 
boasted he had done in the one battle of Hastings, 
they were not men to face any of our lusty Saxons of 
the old race; but they fell before them in battle like 
reeds of the fen when trampled upon. But the skill 
and craft of these alien men were great : many of 
them were drawn from Italie, though not from the 
same part of that country which gave birth to Girolamo; 
and therefore were the services of the Salernitan the 
more valuable; and therefore was it that the young 
Lord of Brunn had need of all his own strategy, and 
of all the inborn and acquired qualities which made 
him the foremost captain of that age. 

Ivo Taille-Bois, whom some did call the devil of 
the fens, was not in the manor-house of the Ladie 
Lucia, near unto Spalding, when Hereward first came 
to claim his own, and to turn out his false monks. 
Being weary with living among bogs and marshes, 


152 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 

and having occasion to consult with the Norman 
vicomte who held command at Stamford, Ivo had 
gone to that town, some few days before the feast of 
the Nativity, and had carried with him his Saxon wife 
and her infant child, leaving none in the moated and 
battlemented house save a few servants, and some ten 
or twelve armed Normans. The house was strong and 
difficult of access; but if it had not been for the 
respect due to the Ladie Lucia, the kinswoman of his 
own Ladie Alftrude, Hereward, on his gaining possession 
of Spalding, would have made a rough attempt upon 
it; and such was the temper of the Saxons within the 
house, that doubtlessly they would have played into 
his hands. For several days the Normans remained 
wholly ignorant of the great things which had been 
done in the succursal cell, at Brunn and at Crowland, 
for they could not venture outside the walls of the 
manor-house, and even if there had been no danger in 
their so doing, the inundated state of the country, 
and the cold wintry weather, offered few temptations 
to rambling. At length the passing of many skerries 
across the fens, and the frequent passage of larger 
boats, crowded with people, on the broad and not 
distant Welland, and the triumphant shouts that were 
occasionally heard from the banks of the river, caused 
the men-at-arms to suspect that some insurrection was 
a-foot. They thanked their stars that the moat was 
so broad, the house so strong, and the store-house so 
well stored, and they went on sleeping like dormice, 
or like squirrels, in the topmost hollow of an oak, 
whose root is deep under the wintry waters. They 
could not trust any Saxon messenger to Stamford; and 
therefore it was not from his garrison in the manor- 
house, but directly from Alain of Beauvais and others 
of that unholy crew, that the fierce Ivo learned all 


LINDEN-GROVE AND LADIE ALFTRUDE 153 


that had happened upon or round about his wife’s 
domains. Some of the herd were seized with fever 
and delirium—the effects of fear and fatigue and wet 
clothes—and they did not recover their senses for 
many a week ; but Alain and such of them as could 
talk and reason related all the horrible circumstances 
of their expulsion and flight, of the onset of the devils 
of Crowland, and of the close and self-evident league 
existing between Beelzebub and the Saxons. All this 
was horrible to hear; but Alain of Beauvais pro¬ 
nounced a name which was more horrible or odious 
to Ivo Taille-Bois than that of Lucifer himself:—this 
was the name of Hereward the Saxon—of Hereward 
the Lord of Brunn, which the men of Crowland town 
had shouted in their ears as the Norman monks were 
flying along the causeway. Partly through the tattle 
of some serving-women, and more through the con¬ 
fidence of his wife, who did not hate her Norman 
lord quite so much as she ought to have done, Ivo 
had learned something of the love passages between 
Hereward and the Ladie Alftrude, and something also 
of the high fame which Hereward had obtained as 
a warrior : and he gnashed his teeth as he said to 
himself in Stamford town : 

4 If this foul game last, my brother may go back to 
Normandie a beggar, and I may follow him as another 
beggar, for this Saxon churl will carry off Lanfranc’s 
rich ward, and besiege and take my house by Spalding, 
and the devil and the Saxon people being all with 
him, he will disseise me of all my lands ! But I will 
to the Vicomte of Stamford, and ask for fifty lances to 
join to my own followers, and albeit I may not charge 
home to Spalding, I can ride to Ey and carry off the 
Saxon girl before this Hereward takes her. Great 
Lanfranc must needs excuse the deed, for if I take her 


154 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


not, and give her to my brother, the Saxon rebel and 
traitor will take her. I was a dolt and wife-governed 
fool ever to have let her depart from mine house after 
that christening feast. But haply now my brother is 
here! The instant we get her he shall wed her. We 
will carry a ring with us to Ey for that purpose ! ’ 

While Ivo Taille-Bois was thus making up his wicked 
mind in Stamford town, the good Lord Hereward was 
advancing with one hundred brave Saxons from his 
fair house at Brunn to the fairer and statelier house of 
the Ladie Alftrude at Ey, having despatched Elfric 
the ex-novice before him to make his way straight,, 
and to appoint a place of meeting with his lady-love, 
and a place of meeting between his friends and 
retainers, and her retainers and the friends of her 
house. Now from Brunn to Ey is a much longer 
distance than from Stamford to Ey; but while the 
Normans were obliged to keep to the roundabout 
roads and to make many preparations beforehand (for 
fear of the fenners), the Englishmen, aided by skerries, 
and whatever the country people could lend them, 
struck directly across the fens. And in this wise it 
befel that Lord Hereward got a good footing within 
the Ladie Alftrude’s domain many hours before Ivo 
Taille-Bois and his brother could get within sight of 
the manor-house of Ey. On the bank of a river 
which flowed towards the Welland, and which formed 
the natural boundary of her far-extending lands, the 
hundred chosen warriors of the Lord of Brunn were 
met and welcomed by fifty armed men of the Ladie of 
Ey, and by fifty or sixty more brave men from the 
neighbouring fens, furnished with long fen-poles, 
bill-hooks, and bows. While these united warriors 
marched together towards the manor-house in goodly 
array, and shouting f Hereward for England! * the 






LINDEN-GROVE AND LADIE ALFTRUDE 155 

young Lord of Brunn, attended by none but Elfric, 
who had met him by the river, quitted the array and 
strode across some fields towards the little church of 
the township which stood on a bright green hillock, 
with a linden grove close behind it. It was within 
that ivied church that the heir of Brunn and the 
heiress of Ey had first met as children; and it was 
in that linden-grove that the bold young man Here- 
ward had first told Alftrude how much he loved her. 
And was it not within that grove, then all gay and 
leafy, and now leafless and bare, that Hereward had 
taken his farewell when going to follow King Harold 
to the wars, and that the Ladie Alftrude had recon¬ 
firmed to him her troth-plight ? And was it not for 
these good reasons that the Saxon maiden, who loved 
not public greetings in the hall, amidst shouts and 
acclamations, had appointed the linden-grove, behind 
the old church, to be the place where she should wel¬ 
come back Hereward to his home and country ? The 
church and the linden-grove were scarce an arrow- 
flight from the manor-house. The noble maiden was 
attended by none but her handmaiden Mildred. When 
the young Lord of Brunn came up and took the Ladie 
Alftrude by the hand, that noble pair walked into the 
grove by a path which led towards the little church. 
For some time their hearts were too full to allow of 
speech : and when they could speak no ear could hear 
them, and no mortal eye see them. With Elfric and 
the maid Mildred it was not so. They stopped at the 
edge of the grove, and both talked and laughed enow 
—though they too were silent for a short space, and 
stood gazing at each other. It is said that it was the 
maiden who spoke first, and that she marvelled much 
at Elfric’s changed attire. 

i Master novice/ she said, ‘ where are thy gown and 


156 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 

thy cowl ? When last I saw thee thou wast habited 
as a wandering glee-man ; and now I see thee armed 
and attired even like a man-at-arms. What meaneth 
this ? Is thy war-dress to serve only for an occasion, 
like thy menestrel cloak ? Tell me, art thou monk, 
menestrel, or soldier ? I thought thy noviciate was all 
but out, and that thou wast about to take thy vows.’ 

f No vows for me/ said Elfric, ‘ but vows to serve 
my country, and vows to love thee, oh Mildred ! 1 

was not meant to be a cloister-monk—albeit, if the 
Normans had not come into the fen country, and I had 
never been sent on the business of the Spalding cell 
to the house of thy mistress, and had never seen thee, 
fair Mildred, I might in all possibility have submitted 
quietly to the manner of life which had been chosen 
for me. But these accidents which have happened 
have made me feel that I love fighting better than 
praying, and loving much better than fasting. My 
superiors have all come to the same conclusion, and 
have liberated me, and have given me to the brave 
and bountiful Lord Hereward to be his page and sword- 
bearer, and whatsoever he may please to make me.’ 

Maid Mildred tried to check her tongue, and to look 
composed or indifferent; but not being well practised 
in the art of concealing her feelings, she set up a cry 
of joy, and then falling on her knees she inwardly 
and silently thanked heaven that Elfric was not to be 
a monk, or one that could not be loved by her with¬ 
out sin. Perhaps the ex-novice understood what was 
passing in her mind; and perhaps he did not: for 
when he raised her up by her hand, and kept her 
hand closed within his own, and looked in her bright 
blue eyes, he said : 

' Mildred, art thou glad, indeed, at this my change of 
condition ? Art thou indeed happy that I should be a 


LINDEN-GROVE AND LADIE ALFTRUDE 157 

soldier, fighting for the good English cause, and a sword- 
bearer constantly in attendance on the brave and 
bountiful Lord of Brunn, to go wherever he goeth, 
and to dwell with him in mansion and hall, when the 
battle is over and the camp struck; or wouldst thou 
have me back in the house at Spalding, and a monk 
for all my days ? ’ 

f It seemeth to me that when devout and learned 
men have opined that thou art fitter for a soldier than 
for a monk, it is not for a weak unlettered maid like 
me to gainsay it. In sooth thou lookest marvellously 
well in that soldier jerkin and baldric; and that 
plumed cap becomes thy merry face better than the 
hood. Thou carriest that sword too by thy side with 
a better grace than ever thou didst carry missal or 
breviary. But—but—alack and woe the while !— 
soldiers get killed and monks do not! Elfric, thou 
wert safer in thy cell/ 

f No, Mildred, these are times when war rages in 
the convent as in the tented field. No house is safe 
from intrusion; and where I was, Norman should 
never intrude without finding at the least one bold 
heart to defy him and oppose him. A young man of 
my temper would encounter more danger in the clois¬ 
ters than on the field of battle, and would perish 
unnoticed by the world, and without any service to 
his country. But as a soldier and follower of Here- 
ward our great captain, I may aid the liberties of the 
Saxon people, and if 1 fall I shall fall, the sword in 
my hand, fighting like a man, with the broad green 
earth under me, and the open blue sky above me ! I 
shall not die pent in cloister like a rat in his hole ! 
and men will remember me when I am gone as the 
slayer of many Normans. . . . But turn not so 

pale, be not discomfited, my merry Mildred, at this 


158 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


thought of death ! Of the thousands that go forth 
into battle the greater part always return, and return 
unscathed, whether they have been victorious or van¬ 
quished ; but if victorious, the less is their loss. Death 
turns aside from those who fear him not, or are too 
busy and too earnest in a just cause to think about 
him. The brave live when the cowards perish: the 
dread carnage falls upon those who run away, or who 
are deaf to the voice of their leader. Our cause is 
just, and will be protected and blessed by heaven. We 
fight only for our own—for our own country, our own 
king, our own ancient laws and usages, our own church. 
The Lord Herew r ard is as politic as he is brave; he is 
famed even beyond seas as one of the greatest of com¬ 
manders ; and with such a cause and such a leader, 
upheld and followed as they must be by all honest 
and stout-hearted Englishmen, we cannot fail of 
victory. And when these Norman robbers shall be 
driven forth of the land, and good King Harold 
restored, there will be no more war, and no more 
danger.’ 

Mildred felt comforted, and they spoke no more of 
war. Elfric related all his wondrous adventures, and 
described all that he had seen in foreign lands when 
he was in quest of the Lord of Brunn, the maiden 
listening to him with wide-open, wondering eyes. 
Next he told her how ingeniously he had played the 
devil at Crowland, and driven away the Norman 
shavelings; and at this Mildred laughed out right 
merrily, saying that she would like to have seen it, 
and yet would not like to have seen it, and asking 
him what sort of vizard he had worn, and what had 
been his complexion as a devil. Elfric told her that 
he would appear to her, and frighten her as a devil 
some night soon, if she did not give him one kiss 


LINDEN-GROVE AND LADIE ALFTRUDE 159 

now; and so Mildred laughed a little, and blushed a 
little, and said nay a little, and then let the bold 
youth take what he asked for. It is weened and 
wotted by some that there had been kisses under the 
hood before now; but now the cucullus had given 
way to the cap, and there was no harm in it. All 
this talk and dalliance by the edge of the linden- 
grove occupied much time, yet the Ladie Alftrude 
and the Lord Here ward did not appear; and much 
as Elfric loved his master, and Mildred her mistress, 
they did not think the time long, nor wish for their 
reappearing. Both, however, spoke much of the bold 
lord and the fair ladie, and in settling their matters 
for them (as handmaidens and pages will aye be 
settling the loves and marriages of their masters and 
mistresses), they in a manner settled their own lots. 
The Lord of Brunn and the Ladie Alftrude, so long 
torn asunder, must soon be united for ever by holy 
church—that was quite certain; Elfric would never 
quit his lord—that was quite certain ; Mildred could 
never leave her lady—that was equally certain ; and 
from this they derived the consequent certainty that 
he, Elfric, and she, Mildred, must henceforward have 
a great deal of each other’s company. Further than 
this they did not go; for just as Elfric was about to 
propound another proposition, Lord Hereward and 
the Ladie Alftrude came forth from the grove, and 
took the direct path towards the manor-house, smiling 
each upon the youth and upon the maiden as they 
passed them. The ladie’s countenance was happy 
and serene, although her eyes showed that she had 
been weeping; the Lord Hereward had a clear, open, 
joyous face at all seasons, but now he seemed radiant 
with joy all over him : and as thus they went their 
way to the near house, followed by the young soldier 


i6o 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


and the young handmaiden, there were four of the 
happiest faces that ever the sun shone upon. 

When they came to the good old Saxon house, 
where lowered drawbridge and open gate betokened 
the Saxon hospitality and the absence of all fear about 
Norman intruders, there was a universal throwing of 
caps into the air, with another loud and universal 
shouting of welcome to the Lord of Brunn; and every 
man, woman, and child there, whether a relative or 
retainer of the one house or of the other, whether a 
vassal to the young lord or to the young lady, coupled 
the names of the twain as if they were to be indis¬ 
solubly joined, and still cried, 'Long life to Lord 
Hereward and the Ladie Alftrude ! Long life to the 
Ladie Alftrude and to Lord Hereward ! God bless the 
bravest and fairest of the Saxons ! ’ The impatience 
of these good people had been great, for great was 
their curiosity and great their appetite : they had all 
been longing to see, side by side, the long-separated 
and re-united pair, and the feast had been ready in 
the hall for the space of one hour or more. 

It proved a much merrier feast than that given by 
Ivo Taille-Bois at the christening of his son ; and if 
Elfric had sung well there, he sang much better here. 
Sundry kinsmen and kinswomen of the Ladie Alftrude, 
who had long journeys to make, and who had not been 
able to arrive before, arrived during the festivity; and, 
during the same season of joy, sundry scouts and 
messengers came in, and spoke either with the Lord 
of Brunn or with his sword-bearer; for Hereward in 
the act of being very merry could be very wise, and he 
could think of fighting at the same time that he was 
thinking of love : he had sent scouts into many parts, 
and other good Saxons that were living near Cam¬ 
bridge, or Huntingdon, or Stamford, or other Norman 


LINDEN-GROVE AND LADIE ALFTRUDE l6i 


stations, were now beginning to send messengers to 
him with all the information that could be procured, 
and with all the good suggestions they had skill to 
offer, for all good men fixed their hopes upon him. 
After communing for a short time with one of these 
trustworthy messengers, Hereward gave a merry peal 
of laughter, and said aloud, ‘ So this Ivo Taille-Bois is 
coming hither to seek my bride ! He shall be wel¬ 
come ! Let him come.’ 


L 


CHAPTER XII 

THE MARRIAGE AND THE AMBUSCADE 

It was agreed on all sides that too much happiness 
had been lost already in their long separation, and that 
Alftrude and Hereward ought now to be married as 
quickly as possible; the great heiress whose lands were 
so coveted could be safe only under the protection of 
a warlike lord and devoted husband; and who was 
there in the land so brave and likely to be so devoted 
as the Lord of Brunn, who had known and loved her 
from his youth, and who had gotten her troth-plight ? 
If the ladie remained single, and the fortune of war 
should prove for a season unfavourable, the Normans, 
by mixing fraud with force, might carry her off, as they 
carried off and forcibly wedded other English heiresses; 
but if she were once united to Hereward, even the 
Normans might hesitate ere they broke the sacred tie 
of the Church. Time was not needed for wooing, for 
there had been good and long wooing long ago; and 
but for the Normans would not Hereward and Alftrude 
long since have been husband and wife ? Thus reasoned 
all the kinsmen and kinswomen of the Ladie Alftrude ; 
and yielding to their good advice, the Saxon heiress con¬ 
sented that her good old household priest should pre¬ 
pare the little church on the hill by the linden-grove, 
and that the wedding should take place on the morrow. 

Hereward was urged by a pleasant spirit of revenge 
162 


THE MARRIAGE AND THE AMBUSCADE 163 

to be thus urgent; for Ivo Taille-Bois was coming on 
the morrow with his men-at-arms and with his brother 
Geoffroy, that unmannerly and unlucky wooer; and so 
the Lord of Brunn would fain bid them to his marriage 
feast, if so it might be. But Hereward kept this plea¬ 
sant thought to himself, or explained it to none but 
Elfric and Girolamo of Salerno. The morning after 
that happy meeting in the linden-grove was a bright 
winter’s morning. The sun rarely shines so bright in 
the summer time as in the fen country. The little 
church was ready, the good old English priest was robed 
and at the altar; the path leading from the manor-house 
to the church, in lack of flowers, was strewed with 
rushes, and the serfs of the Ladie Alftrude were ranged 
on either side of the path; the ladie herself was attired 
as became a bride (a Saxon bride in the good old time 
before our fashions were corrupted); her fair young 
kinswomen, who were to stand by her side at the altar, 
were dressed and ready, and all other persons and 
things were ready about two hours before noon. There 
was music and there were fresh shouts of joy in the 
hall and outside of the manor-house when Lord Here¬ 
ward stepped forth with his blushing bride on his arm 
and headed the gay procession. But though gay, the 
attendance was not so great as it might have been, for 
a great many of the armed men were not there, and 
even the sword-bearer and the Salernitan were both 
absent. Maid Mildred thought it very strange and 
very wrong that Elfric should be away at such a happy 
juncture; but the truth is that Elfric and Girolamo, 
and many of the fighting men, had something else to 
do. The goodly procession soon reached the church 
porch, and then all entered that could find room with¬ 
out overcrowding their betters. But most of the 
armed men who had followed the procession either 




164 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


remained in the porch or stationed themselves on the 
hillside outside the church. It was noticed afterwards 
that these bold men often looked to their weapons, and 
that all the hinds and serfs that had been standing by 
the pathway had bills and bows, or long fen-poles 
loaded and spiked with iron. The household priest 
had scarcely said the Benedicite ere the alert Elfric 
came running up the hill and through the linden-grove 
and into the porch, and up to his lord’s side in the 
body of the church; and when Elfric had whispered a 
few words Here ward said : 

‘Alftrude, let thy heart rejoice! I have caught as 
in a trap the villains that would have wronged thee ! 
Saxons, all rejoice, and remain here, and move not 
until I return ! ’ 

And so, bowing to the priest, and praying his 
patience, the Lord of Brunn strode out of the church, 
leaving the fair ladie of Ey looking all astonishment 
and somew r hat pale. Behind the church Elfric helped 
the lord to his armour and arms. 

While putting on his mail, Hereward said, ‘ Are they 
well in ? Art thou sure that thou hast caught this Ivo 
and his brother ? ’ 

‘ Well in ! ’ said Elfric ; ‘ as many as we let come 
over the bridge are in up to their chins, and Ivo and 
his brother came on first! ’ 

f It pleaseth me well,’ quoth Hereward, as he ran 
down the hill followed by his sword-bearer ; ‘ it pleaseth 
me right well! I did not expect the two caitiffs quite 
so soon; but since they are come, I vow by every saint 
that ever spoke the Saxon tongue, that they shall be 
witnesses to my marriage, and after they shall be 
bidden to my w r edding feast! ’ 

‘ I wish them a good appetite,’ said Elfric. 

A scant mile beyond the church hill and the linden- 






THE MARRIAGE AND THE AMBUSCADE 165 


grove there ran a narrow but very deep stream, which 
was crossed by an old wooden bridge. All persons 
coming from Stamford must pass this river; and Here- 
ward had been properly advised of all Ivo’s intentions 
and of all his movements. Girolamo had been hard at 
work over-night upon the bridge, and by his good 
science the timbers of the bridge were so cut into 
pieces and put together again, that he could allow any 
given number of persons to cross, and then by a simple 
operation disjoint the bridge and pull it to pieces so 
that no more should pass. To contain the water with¬ 
in its bed some broad embankments of earth had been 
made in very old times near to the bridge; and under 
cover of these embankments nearly all the armed 
Saxons had been mustered by Lord Hereward at a 
very early hour in the morning, yet not until divers 
other traps and pitfalls had been prepared for the 
Normans. As the Lord of Brunn and the Ladie 
Alftrude were walking from the manor-house to the 
church, the good men lying in ambush by the river 
side discovered a great troop pressing along the half- 
inundated road towards the bridge. These Normans 
had not been able to get their horses across the fens, 
and therefore were they all coming on foot, cursing 
the bogs and pools and making a loud outcry when 
they ought all to have been silent. 

Girolamo and Elfric, who w^ere holding some coils 
of rope in their hands behind the embankment, 
presently heard Ivo Taille-Bois say to his brother, 
‘ Vive Notre Dame, the wooden bridge is standing ! 
The fools have not had wit enough to see that it 
ought to be cut down ! Set me down this Hereward 
for an ass! Come on, Geoffroy, this detestable foot- 
march is all but over. Behind that hill and grove 
stands thy manor-house, and therein thy bride/ 


166 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


'We shall soon see that/ said Elfric to himself, 'and 
thou shalt soon see whose bride the Lady Alftrude is.’ 

This while Girolamo was peeping at the head of the 
Norman column ; and he kept peeping until Ivo Taille- 
Bois and his brother Geoffroy and some half-score men- 
at-arms came upon the bridge and fairly crossed it. 
And then, as the rest of the diabolical band were about 
to follow, Elfric gave a shrill whistle, and tugged at 
his rope, and the other good Saxons pulled hard at 
other ropes, and in the twinkling of an eye the bridge 
fell to pieces, and Ivo and his brother and such as had 
followed them remained on this side of the bridge, and 
the rest of the Normans remained on the other side of 
the bridge. And then a score of horns sounded lustily 
along the ambuscaded line, and fourscore well-armed 
Saxons vaulted from their wet lair to the top of the 
embankments, and set up a shout, and sent such a 
flight of arrows across the river as put the Normans on 
the other side to a rapid flight along the causeway. 
Ivo and his brother and the rest that had crossed the 
bridge ran along the inner bank of the river followed 
by hearty laughter and a few sharp arrows from the 
Saxons; but they had not gone far when what seemed 
hard and dry ground broke in under their feet, and let 
them all drop into a quagmire or pool, one not quite so 
foul as some of those by Crowland Abbey, but still foul 
enough. It was not until he saw them safely deposited 
in this place that Elfric went in search of his master ; 
and as he went off for the church he enjoined the 
Saxons, in Lord Hereward’s name, to do the Normans 
no further hurt. 

Now, as the Lord of Brunn strode down from the 
hill towards the riverside, and as the Saxons on the 
embankment shouted, * Here ward for England ! * Ivo 
Taille-Bois, all in his woeful plight, looked hard at the 


THE MARRIAGE AND THE AMBUSCADE 167 

Saxon warrior, and as Hereward came nearer, Ivo said, 
f Peste ! brother Geoffroy, but this Hereward is the 
very man that shivered my shield with his battle-axe 
and unhorsed me at Hastings. An I had thought he 
had been so near I would not have come with thee on 
thy accursed wooing ! * 

‘ Brother Ivo/ said Geoffroy, ( it is thou that hast 
brought me into this evil with thy mad talk about 
Saxon heiresses. But let us confess our sins, for our 
last moment is at hand. My feet are sinking deeper 
and deeper in the mud : I can scarcely keep my mouth 
above the surface of this feculent pool! ’ 

When the Lord of Brunn came up to the edge of 
the pool with Elfric and Girolamo, and all his merry 
men who had been standing on the embankments, 
and who could no longer see the Normans who had 
fled from the opposite side of the river, the Norman 
men-at-arms that were floundering in the pool with 
their leader set up a cry about misericorde and ran¬ 
som ; and even the great Taille-Bois himself called 
out lustily for quarter; while his brother, who was a 
shorter man, cried out that he would rather be killed 
by the sword than by drowning, and piteously im¬ 
plored the Saxons to drag out of that foul pool no less 
a knight than Geoffroy Taille-Bois. 

e Verily/ said Elfric, who understood his French, 
* verily. Master Geoffroy, thou art in a pretty pickle 
to come a-wooing to the fairest and noblest maiden in 
all England.’ 

‘ That is he ! ’ said the Lord of Brunn, who at first 
took more notice of Geoffroy, nay, much more notice 
than he took of Ivo; ‘ and I believe that if he were 
in better case, and a Saxon, and no Norman, he would 
not be a very dangerous rival.’ 

( Hereward of Brunn,’ said Ivo, whose teeth were 


16*8 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


chattering with cold, if not with fear ; ' Here ward 
the Saxon, an thou be he, bid thy churls draw us from 
this pool, and I will settle with thee the terms of 
ransom. Thou canst not wish that we should be 
smothered here; and if thou art a soldier, thou wilt 
not put to the sword two knights of name, who have 
been most unfairly entrapped by a set of boors/ 

'Ivo Taille-Bois the Norman, an thou be he/ said 
Hereward, ‘ I wish neither to drown nor to slay thee 
by the sword; at least not at this present; but I 
would fain humble thy pride and arrogance, and give 
thee some reason to remember thy foul attempt to 
seize and force the will of a noble maiden whom thou 
believedst to be defenceless ! ’ 

'As for being entrapped by boors/ said Girolamo 
of Salerno, ' thou art mistaken, O Taille-Bois ! in that, 
for I, thine equal, laid the trap into which thou art 
fallen.’ 

' And foul designs deserve foul traps/ said Elfric. 

' I know not what design thou layest to my charge,’ 
said Ivo. ' I am true liege man to King William, the 
lawful heir of King Edward, of happy memory : the 
heiress of these lands is in the king’s peace, and under 
the protection of the primate Lanfranc: and I, the 
Vicomte of Spalding, hearing that there were troubles 
in these parts, was coming only to place the lady in 
security.’ 

'Ay, such security as the wolf giveth to the lamb/ 
said Hereward. ' But Ivo, add not more guilt and 
dishonour to thy soul by lying! The intent of thy 
coming, and the object for which thou hast brought 
thy brother with thee, are as well known to me as 
to thyself. Ye Normans be all too talkative to keep 
a secret, and if King Harold had Saxon traitors that 
betrayed him, so have ye men in your camps and in 


THE MARRIAGE AND THE AMBUSCADE 169 

your stations that think it no sin to betray you Nor¬ 
mans. Have a heed to it, Ivo ! and bethink thyself 
in time that all Saxons be not so dull-witted as thou 
imaginest/ 

Geoffroy Taille-Bois, greatly encouraged by the Lord 
of Brunn’s assurance that death was not intended 
either by drowning or by the sword, spoke out as 
boldly and as clearly as the chattering of his teeth 
would allow, and said, ‘ Saxon, methinks that thou 
talkest at an unfair vantage, and that we might settle 
the matter of ransom the sooner if we were on dry 
land.’ 

‘ Tis well thought/ replied Hereward, 'for I have 
small time to lose in parley. This is my wedding 
day, Sir Geoffroy. My bride, the Ladie Alftrude, is 
in the church, and the priest is waiting for me with 
open book at the altar. My humour is that thou 
and thy brother shall be witnesses to our marriage 
ceremony. Come, my good Saxons, drag me this pond, 
and pull out those big Norman fish ! * 

A score of Saxons instantly threw strong fishing- 
nets and coils of rope across the pool. The men-at- 
arms, seeing that quarter was to be given, gladly 
caught hold of the ropes, and so were landed ; but 
the mention of the marriage, and of Hereward’s 
humour to have them both present at it as witnesses, 
had so filled the minds of Ivo and his brother with 
trouble and shame, that they caught neither at the 
ropes nor at the nets, seeming to prefer tarrying 
where they were to going up to the church. The 
Lord of Brunn waxed impatient; and making a sign 
to Elfric, that nimble sportsman threw a noose over 
the surface of the pool, and threw it with so good an 
aim that he caught Geoffroy round the neck; and 
then giving his coil a good tug, which brought the 


170 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


head of the unlucky rival of his master under water, 
Elfric shouted, Tome out, thou false Norman, come 
out, and to the wedding, or be drowned or hanged— 

I care not which.’ 

Geoffroy, thus hardly entreated, waded and struggled 
to the brink as best he could, and was there pulled 
out all covered with mud, or with the green mantle 
of the pool. Ivo, apprehending a rope round his own 
neck, caught hold of one of the nets that the shouting 
and laughing Saxons kept throwing at him, and he too 
was dragged out of the water, all bemired or green, 
and almost breathless. 

Such of the men-at-arms as had kept their weapons 
had laid them at the feet of Lord Hereward, in token 
of unconditional surrender. Geoffroy, the unlucky 
wooer, had no weapon to give up, having left his 
sword in the pool; but his brother Ivo had his broad 
blade at his side, and when called upon to surrender 
it, he made a wry face and said that a knight ought 
to surrender only to a knight, meaning thereby to 
taunt the Lord of Brunn with his not having been 
admitted into the high military confraternity. 

‘ Ivo,’ said Hereward, ( I told Raoul, that dis¬ 
possessed usurper and robber, and I now tell thee, 
that I shall soon be a knight, meaning that I shall 
be one according to usage and rites and ceremonies. 
True knighthood is in the heart and soul of man, and 
not in the ceremonies. Were I not already a truer 
knight than thou, I would hang thee and thy brother 
to these willow-trees, and butcher thy men here, even 
as too many of ye Normans have butchered defenceless 
Saxon prisoners after surrender. Give up thy sword, 
man, or it may not be in my power to save thee from 
the fury of my people ! Give up thy sword, I say ! ’ 

Ivo began a long protest, which so incensed Elfric 



THE MARRIAGE AND THE AMBUSCADE 171 

and Girolamo, that they drew their own blades; but 
the Lord of Brunn bade them put up their weapons, 
and then said to the proud Norman knight, 

' Traitor and spoiler as thou art, talk no more of dark 
stratagem and treachery ! A people, struggling for 
their own against numerous and organised armies, 
must avail themselves of the natural advantages which 
their soil and country, their rivers and meres, or 
mountains may afford them. No stratagem is foul: 
the foulness is all in the invaders and robbers. Armies 
are [not to be bound by the rules of thy chivalry. 
Until my forces be both increased and improved, I 
will risk no open battle, or adventure any number of 
my men in an encounter with the trained troops from 
Normandie, and from nearly all Europe besides, that 
have been making a constant occupation and trade of 
war for so long a season. This I frankly tell thee; but 
at the same time I tell thee to thy teeth, that if I and 
thou ever meet on a fair and open field, I will do thee 
battle hand to hand for that sword which thou must 
now surrender. Norman! I would fight thee for it 
now, but that the field is not fair here—but that these 
rough fen-men would hardly allow fair play between 
us—but that this is my wedding-day, and the priest 
and my bride are waiting. Man, I will brook no more 
delay—give me thy sword or die ! ’ 

Ivo Taille-Bois stretched out his unwilling arm, 
and holding the point of his sword in his own hand, 
he put the hilt of it into the hand of the English 
champion, who threw it among the heap of Norman 
swords that lay at his back. 

At this new mark of contempt, Ivo muttered, 'Was 
ever knight treated in so unknightly a manner! 
Must I really be dragged to the church by these 
dirty clowns ? ’ 


172 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


To this my Lord Hereward replied, ‘Did ever 
knight engage in such unknightly deed ! Yea, Ivo, 
and thou, Geoffroy, likewise, I tell ye ye must to the 
church; and if ye will not go but upon compulsion, 
these honest men and clean shall drag ye both 
thither.’ 

‘Then,’ said Geoffroy, speaking mildly, 4 permit us 
at least to wipe this mud from our hose, and this green 
slime from our coats.’ 

* It needs not/ said the Lord of Brunn, with a 
laugh; ‘ thine hose are not so dirty as the motive 
which brought thee hither, and thine head is as green 
as thy coat. So close up, my men, and let us march.’ 

The Lord Hereward, however, did not prevent Ivo 
from rubbing himself down with the skirt of a coat 
appurtenant to one of his men-at-arms. As for 
Geoffroy, Elfric would not permit a Norman to ap¬ 
proach him; and when he would have stopped by the 
hillside to rub himself against a tree, as our fen 
swine use when they would clean themselves from 
the mud of the marshes, Elfric or some other zealous 
Saxon got between him and the tree and pushed him 
forward. 

In this wise—the Normans groaning and distilling, 
and the Saxons laughing and shouting—the whole 
mixed party ascended the hill and came to the church. 
The Lord Here ward’s absence from the church had 
been but short—it had not lasted an hour in all—yet 
were the priest and the goodly company assembled 
growing very impatient, and the Ladie Alftrude very 
much alarmed, albeit she was a maiden of high 
courage, as befitted one who lived in troublous times, 
and she had been opportunely advised that the Lord 
Hereward had only gone to an easy triumph. But 
bright, though bashfully, beamed her blue eye when 


THE MARRIAGE AND THE AMBUSCADE 173 

Hereward appeared in the porch. But who were 
these two forlorn Norman knights walking close be¬ 
hind him with their heads bent on their breasts and 
their eyes on the ground ? Ha, ha! sweet Ladie 
Alftrude, thine own eye became more bashful, and 
thy blush a deeper red, when thou didst see and 
understand who those two knights were, and why 
they had been brought into the church! The dames 
and damsels of the company all stared in amaze; 
and the Saxon priest, still standing with open book, 
started and crossed himself as he looked at Ivo Taille- 
Bois and his brother Geoffroy. 

‘They be but two witnesses the more,’ said bold 
Hereward. ‘We will tell thee at the feast how pro¬ 
per it is that they should be here ; but now, good 
priest, go on with that which their arrival interrupted. 
Elfric, make space here near the altar for our two 
unbidden guests. Dames, come not too near them, for 
they be very cold strangers ! * 

The marriage ceremony then went on to its happy 
completion, Ivo Taille-Bois and his brother Geoffroy 
grinding their teeth and groaning inwardly all the 
while : and even thus was it made to come to pass 
that those who would have carried off the Ladie 
Alftrude were forced to be witnesses to her union 
with her old and true love. It was a tale for a 
menestrel; and a pretty tale Elfric made of it, at a 
later date, to sing to his four-stringed Saxon lyre. 

‘And now,’ shouted the bountiful Lord of Brunn, 
as they all quitted the church, ‘ now for the wassail- 
bowl and the feast in hall! Ivo Taille-Bois, and thou 
Geoffroy, much as thou wouldst have wronged us, we 
bid thee to the feast—the Ladie Alftrude and I bid 
thee to our marriage feast! ’ 

‘Throw me rather into thy dungeon/ said Geoffroy. 


174 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


‘ Enough of this farcing/ said Ivo. f Hereward the 
Saxon, name the terms of the ransom, and let us be 
gone from thy presence. Ladie Alftrude, remember 
that I am thy cousin by marriage.’ 

' Methinks/ replied Alftrude, f that thou oughtest to 
have remembered that same fact before coming with 
thy men-at-arms against me.’ 

But, after saying these words, the gentle and kind- 
hearted Saxon bride, stepping aside from the throng, 
spoke for a while in Lord Hereward’s ear; and after 
that the Lord of Brunn, who was radiant with joy as 
ever was knight that sat with King Arthur at the 
Round Table, turned to Ivo and Geoffroy, and said : 

‘ Unwilling guests mar a feast. Since you will not 
come willingly, you need not come at all. A Saxon 
manor-house hath no dungeon in it or near it, and at 
present I have no wish to keep you in duresse. Saxon 
chiefs were ever generous on their happy days, and 
when shall I find a day so happy as this ? I will ask 
no ransom, for thou. Sir Geoffroy, art but a pauper ; 
and thou, O Ivo, albeit thou callest thyself Vicomte 
of Spalding, thou wilt soon find thyself as moneyless 
and as landless as thy brother! I will ask for no vows 
or promises, for well I ween ye would break them all. 
I will only ask of thee, O Ivo, that if we twain meet 
on some field of battle, thou wilt not turn from me! 
Thy half score men-at-arms we will send to the Camp 
of Refuge, that they may be exchanged for a like 
number of Saxon prisoners ; but for thyself, and for thy 
brother, I say get ye gone, and tell your Normans in 
Stamford town, ay, and in London city, all that you 
have seen and heard this day, and all that they may 
expect if they come to make war in the fen country.’ 

f How can we get gone ? The bridge is broken, and 
we cannot cross that cursed river/ said Ivo. 


THE MARRIAGE AND THE AMBUSCADE 175 

‘ Thy Saxon boors will murder us on the road/ said 
Geoffroy. 

‘ Not on our lands; not within the bounds of Ladie 
Alftrude’s domains. Elfric, Girolamo, conduct these 
Norman knights across the river, and send a few good 
men to escort them to the edge of the fen country. 
Let not a drop of blood be spilt, nor so much as a hair 
of their head be injured. It were of ill omen that 
blood should be shed on this day. There will be a 
time for that hereafter. Come, make good speed, for 
the feast will be but dull until Elfric returns/ 

‘ But wilt thou not give us back our swords, that we 
may defend ourselves with them in case of attack ? ’ 
said Ivo. 

‘No, no,’ quoth the Lord of Brunn; ‘we must keep 
the swords to show that ye have been hereabout— 
that ye have been our surrendered prisoners. As for 
self-defence, ye had better not think of that until ye 
get back to Stamford town. Ye must trust to my 
escort, and to the respect and obedience paid to me 
by all this fen country. If our fenners were to fall 
upon ye, it is not your brace of swords that w r ould be 
of any use/ 

‘ Then I say again we shall be murthered on the 
road/ said Geoffroy. 

‘ And I again say nay/ quoth the Lord of Brunn. ‘ I 
tell ye again, that ye shall have safe escort to the 
edge of the fens, and that not a hair of your head shall 
be injured—provided only ye do not insult homely 
honest folk by calling them foul names, or by other¬ 
wise treating them discourteously, for if ye offend in 
that way the Saxon blood may boil up and cause my 
orders to be forgotten. So now go !—and if I cannot 
say Fare ye well for aye, I say, May ye fare well as 
far as Stamford, and until we meet on a fair field, 


176 THE CAMP OF REFUGE 

where thou and I, Sir Ivo, may prove which is the 
better man or the better knight.’ 

As the two Normans walked off the ground, they 
looked so crestfallen and woe-begone that the Ladie 
Alftrude quite pitied them, and chided her maid 
Mildred for so loudly laughing at them and pointing 
the finger of scorn at them. But others wanted this 
chiding as much as Mildred, seeing that every Saxon 
maid and every Saxon matron present were laughing 
and tittering at Geoffroy Taille-Bois’s unlucky w r ooing, 
and his damp and dismal case. 

The marriage feast in the hall was sumptuous and 
most joyous. It was enlivened and lengthened by 
tricks of jugglery and legerdemain, by the recitation of 
tales, legends, and romances, and by lays sung to 
musical instruments, for although the notice given had 
been so short, many jugglers and menestrels had hurried 
to Ey from different parts of the fen country. In 
nearly all the rest of broad England the art of the 
Saxon menestrel was now held in scorn ; and the mene- 
strel himself was oppressed and persecuted, for his tales 
and songs all went to remind the Saxon people of their 
past history, of their heroes and native saints, and of 
their past independence. But this persecution had 
driven many towards the eastern coasts, and thus it 
was that the fen country and the Camp of Refuge as 
much abounded with Saxon menestrels as with dis¬ 
possessed Saxon monks. Of those that flocked in 
troops to the manor-house at Ey, to sing at the marriage 
feast, it may be judged whether they did not exert 
their best skill on so solemn an occasion ! Loudly and 
nobly did they sing Athelstane’s Song of Victory, 
which related how Athelstane the King, the Lord of 
Earls, the rewarder of heroes, and his brother Edmund 
of the ancient race, triumphed over the foe at Brunan- 



THE MARRIAGE AND THE AMBUSCADE 177 

burg, cleaving their shields and hewing their banners; 
how these royal brothers were ever ready to take the 
field to defend the land and their homes and hearths 
against every invader and robber; how they had made 
the Northmen sail back in their nailed ships, on the 
roaring sea, over the deep water, after strewing the 
English shore with their dead, that were left behind 
to be devoured by the sallow kite, the swarth raven, 
the hoary vulture, the swift eagle, the greedy goshawk, 
and that grey beast the wolf of the weald. And as 
the menestrel sang, the drinking-horn, capacious as 
became the hospitality of that old Saxon house, was 
handed quickly round by page and waiting-man, who 
carried great vessels in their hands, and filled the dark 
horn right up to its silver rim with mead, or wine, or 
pigment, every time that they presented the horn to 
gentle or simple. 


M 


CHAPTER XIII 


HOW LORD HEREWARD AND HIS LADIE LIVED AT EY 

Even when the marriage festival was over it was a 
happy and a merry life that which they led in the 
good Saxon manor-house, and discreet and orderly 
withal. It being the wolf-month of the year (Janu- 
arius), when the days are still short and the nights 
long, Hereward and the Ladie Alftrude, together with 
the whole household, rose long before it was daylight. 
Before attending to any household or other duties, 
prayers were said in the hall by Alefric, the good 
mass-priest, all the servants of the house and all the 
indwelling serfs being present thereat. Some short 
time after prayers the first of the four meals of the 
day was served by torch or candle-light, and the 
lord and ladie broke their fast; and when they had 
finished the meal the door of the house was thrown 
open, and the poor from the neighbouring township, 
or the wanderers that had no home, were admitted 
into the house, and the lord and ladie with their own 
hands distributed food among them, and while they 
distributed it the mass-priest blessed the meat and 
said a prayer. And this being over they went forth 
at early-dawn to the little church on the hill behind 
the linden-grove and there heard mass. The ladie 
then went home to attend unto domestic concerns, 
and the lord went forth with his hawks and proper 

178 


LIVING AT EY 


179 

attendants to hawk by the river, or he took forth his 
hounds (of that famous breed of English dogs which 
hath been famed in all times, and as well for war as 
for hunting, and which hath been so much coveted 
by foreign nations that already it beginneth to dis¬ 
appear from this land), and he called together the 
free men of the vicinage that loved the sport, and 
such of the serfs as were best practised in it, and 
went well armed with venabula or hunting-spears into 
the fens and covers to hunt the hart and hind, or the 
w r ild goat, or the wild bull of the fens, or the wild 
boar, or the grey wolf, which was not yet extinct in 
these parts of England. 

It was a good law of King Canute, which said 
that every free man in England might hunt in his 
own woods and grounds, and hunt as much as he list, 
provided only he interfered not with the royal parks 
and demesnes. But the Norman princes, not content 
with spreading their parks all over the country, and 
with seizing upon the lands of the church and the 
poor to make them great hunting-grounds and deer- 
parks, established cruel laws therewith, so that whoso¬ 
ever slew a hart or a hind should be deprived of his 
eyesight; and Duke William forbade men to kill the 
hart or the boar, and, as our Saxon chronicler saith, 
he loved the tall deer as if he were their father! and 
likewise he decreed that none should kill so much as 
a hare, and at this the rich men bemoaned and the 
poor men shuddered. Old England will not be 
England until these un-Saxon laws be entirely gone 
from us! 

From this good sport Lord Hereward returned to 
the house about an hour before the sun reached the 
meridian, and then was served the abundant dinner 
in the hall; and the not stinted dinner in the kitchen 







180 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


for the churls and serfs followed the dinner in the 
hall. If the weather was fine, the lady as well as 
the lord went out in the afternoon to hawk, or to fish, 
or to see the pleasant and profitable sport of their 
expert fenners who snared the wild fowl, or took the 
animals of the chace by means of fovece or deep pit- 
falls which they cunningly dug in the ground in the 
likeliest places, and still more cunningly concealed 
by laying across them sticks, and twigs, and moss, 
and turf. As the sun set they returned again to the 
house and sang in concert with all the household 
the Ave Maria , or they went into the little church 
and heard the full service of Vespers. Upon these 
duties of religion there followed a slight merenda or 
afternoon’s drinking, or refection between dinner and 
supper; and then Elfric or some other skilful wight 
made music in the hall by playing upon the harp and 
singing; or Alefricus, that learned clerk, brought 
down a book and read in it, or the freedmen and 
elders of the township gathered round the cheerful 
hearth with the lord and ladie, and related tales and 
legends of the old times, or took counsel with Here- 
ward as to the future. If a Saxon gleeman came 
that way he was ever welcome; and these evening 
hours were often made to pass away the more plea¬ 
santly by the arrival of such a stranger, who, mayhap, 
could sing a new song, or tell an unheard tale, or 
give some little intelligence of what was passing in 
the upland country and in the world beyond the fens. 
No Saxon chief of fame ever stinted the bard; and 
whether he w r ent south or north, east or west, the 
menestrel found every hall open to him, and had but 
to speak his wants and to raise his grateful voice, 
and all and more than he wanted was given unto 
him. When he entered a house they brought him 


LIVING AT EY 


181 


water to wash his hands and warm water for his feet, 
or they prepared for him the warm bath, which was 
ever offered in good Saxon houses on the arrival of 
an honoured and welcome guest—and where was the 
guest that could be more welcome than the bard ? 
So dearly did the Lord of Brunn love the sound of 
the harp that it was his occasional custom now, and 
his constant custom in after-life, to place a harper 
near his bedchamber to amuse and solace him upon 
occasion, and for the exhilaration of his spirits and 
as an excitement to devotion. And it was because 
Hereward so loved menestrels, and pious and learned 
men of the Saxon stock, that his friends and adherents 
were so numerous while he was living, and his deeds 
so faithfully recorded and lovingly preserved when 
he was dead. Thus music and talk brought on the 
hour for supper; and after supper the. good mass- 
priest said prayers in the hall to gentle and simple; 
and then, when a good watch had been set, all of the 
household went to their beds and prayed to lead as 
happy a life on the morrow as that which they had 
led to-day: for, whether serfs, or free-born men, or 
manumitted churls, all were happy at Ey, and most 
kindly entreated by lord and ladie twain; in such 
sort that what happened in other houses, as the 
running away of serfs, or the putting collars round 
their necks and gyves to their legs to prevent their 
running away, never happened here or at Brunn. 

And if they lived thus happily and orderly for these 
few days at Ey, w r hen danger was close at hand, and 
when they might be said to be living in the midst of 
perils and uncertainties, I "wist their rule was not 
changed at a later time of their lives, when Hereward 
and Alftrude came to dwell in safety and tranquillity 
at the noble old house at Brunn. 




182 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


But during these few tranquil days at Ey the young 
bride’s mind was at times clouded by the thought that 
her husband must soon leave her, to contend with the 
pitiless Normans, and to rush into all the hazards of 
war; and, Saxon-hearted as she was, this afflictive 
thought, being aided by the gentleness of her nature, 
which ever revolted at bloodshed, made her long for 
a peace upon almost any terms, not even excepting 
that of submission to the Norman dominion. 

f My Here ward ! ’ said the Ladie Alftrude, f it is now 
more than four years since the banner of King Harold 
was laid low, and yet blood hath never ceased flowing 
in England! When will this cruel war come to an 
end? Oh, Hereward, why wilt thou leave me again, 
and so soon ? What art thou fighting for ? ’ 

‘ Sweet Alftrude/ quoth the Lord of Brunn, ‘ I 
am fighting for my country, for the Saxon church, 
and for mine own inheritance ! A man can hardly 
have more to fight for ! ’ 

f But, Hereward, is not all the country, save this 
most fenny part of it, quietly submitting to the 
Conqueror! Doth not Lanfranc the archbishop give 
assurance that no lasting usurpation of the goods of 
the church is contemplated, and that it is his wish 
and intention only to improve the Saxon church and 
the great and rich Saxon houses of religion by bring¬ 
ing over from foreign parts some more learned priests, 
and more learned and more active monks ? And 
are not these broad lands enough for thee and me ? 
Nay, frown not! and might not thine own lands at 
Brunn be secured if thou wouldst submit and take 
the peace of the Norman ruler? Forgive me if I 
err, as the error all proceeds from the love I bear 
thee and the dread I have of losing thee. England, 
we are told, was happy under the dominion of Canute 


LIVING AT EY 


183 


the Dane, and what was King Canute in England but 
a conqueror ? And if Englishmen were happy under 
one foreign conqueror, might they not be happy under 
another ? ’ 

‘ Not so, sweet Alftrude. Canute was contented 
to govern according to the old Saxon laws. When 
he gave some new laws, they were the freest and best 
that were ever given until those of Edward the Con¬ 
fessor, and they were given with counsel of his Witan, 
a free and honoured assemblage of Saxon lords and 
Saxon bishops, Saxon abbats and priests, and Saxon 
eldermen. And in those dooms or laws King Canute, 
speaking with and for the Saxon Witan, said that 
just laws should be established, and every unjust law 
carefully suppressed, and that every injustice should 
be weeded out and rooted up from this country; and 
that God’s justice should be exalted ; and that thence¬ 
forth every man, whether poor or rich, should be 
esteemed worthy of his folk-right, and have just 
dooms doomed to him. And likewise did Canute, in 
those dooms, which were conceived in the mild Saxon 
spirit, raise his voice and set his face against death 
punishments and all barbarous penalties. “And we 
instruct and command,” said he, “that though a man 
sin and sin deeply, his correction shall be so regulated 
as to be becoming before God and tolerable before 
men; and let him who hath power of judgment very 
earnestly bear in mind what he himself desires when 
he thus prays—Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive 
them that trespass against us. And we command 
that Christian men be not, on any account, for al¬ 
together too little, condemned to death, but rather let 
gentle punishments be decreed, for the benefit of the 
people; and let not be destroyed, for little, God’s 
handiwork, and His own purchase which He dearly 


184 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


bought.” Thus said King Canute in his dooms, and 
in his days men in power were made to act according 
to those mild laws. But how is it now, under the 
Normans ? My gentle-hearted bride, I would not 
wring thy heart and bring tears into thine eyes, but 
is it not true that for any wrong done or offence 
given—nay, for the allowable deed of defending their 
own, and standing up for their country, Saxons of all 
degrees are butchered like sheep in the shambles, or 
are put to slow and horrible deaths, or are mutilated 
in the limbs, or have their eyes put out, as if it were 
no sin to spoil and destroy God’s noblest handiwork ? 
Nay, is not the life of a Saxon held as a thing of less 
price than the life of a small deer ? By our old laws, 
if the greatest thane in the land slew but the poorest 
serf or lowliest churl, he made bot for it; but now, 
and even in those parts of England where the war 
hath ceased, if the meanest Norman soldier kill twenty 
Saxon serfs or slay a Saxon lord, no heed is taken of 
it. The Saxons have no redress except that which 
they may find in their own swords. Even in London 
city, there is one law for the Saxons and another law 
for the Normans. If a Saxon be accused of murder or 
robbery, he is bound to justify himself according to 
our ancient custom, by compurgation, and by the 
ordeal of red-hot iron or boiling water; but if a 
Frenchman be accused of the like crime by a Saxon, 
he vindicates himself by duello or single combat, or 
simply by his oath, according to the law of Normandie. 
King Canute said, “Let the free people of England 
manage their own townships and shires, and learn to 
govern themselves; let no man apply to the king 
unless he cannot get justice within his own hundred ; 
let there be thrice a-year a burgh-gemot, and twice 
a-year a shire-gemot, unless there be need oftener; 


LIVING AT EY 


185 


and let there be present the bishop of the shire and 
the elderman, and there let both expound as well the 
law of God as the law of man.” But William the 
Norman alloweth not of these free things; William 
the Norman consulteth not the Witan of the nation, 
but governeth the country through a Norman council. 
When he was coming back from his pilgrimage to 
Rome, King Canute sent a long letter to Egelnoth 
the metropolitan, to Archbishop Alfric, to all bishops 
and chiefs, and to all the nation of the English, both 
nobles and commoners, greeting them all, and telling 
them all that he had dedicated his life to God, to 
govern his kingdoms with justice, and to observe the 
right in all things. “ And therefore,” said he, “ I beg 
and command those unto whom I have entrusted the 
government, as they wish to preserve my good will, 
and save their own souls, to do no injustice either to 
rich or to poor : and let those who are noble, and 
those who are not, equally obtain their rights ac¬ 
cording to their laws, from which no departure shall 
be allowed either from fear of me, or through favour 
to the powerful, or to the end of supplying my 
treasury, for I want no money raised by injustice.” But 
what saith this Norman William? He saith, “Get me 
all the money ye can, anddieed not the means!” 
And hath he not extorted money by right and by 
unright ? And have not his greedy followers done 
worse than he in the land ? And are they not 
building castles everywhere to make robbers’ dens of 
them ? And have they not made beggars of the rich, 
and miserably swinked the poor—ay, even where 
resistance was none after Hastings, and where the 
Saxons prostrated themselves and trusted to the pro¬ 
mises and oaths pledged by William at Westminster 
and Berkhampstead, that he would govern the land 


186 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


according to our old laws? For the church, my sweet 
Alftrude, I see not that it is to be improved by 
thrusting out peaceful monks and priests of English 
birth, and by thrusting in turbulent fighting priests, 
who speak not and comprehend not the tongue of the 
English people. Better men may come hereafter ; 
but, certes, it is but an ungodly crew which, as yet, 
hath followed Duke William and Lanfranc, the whilom 
Abbat of Caen, into England ! Touching my poor 
house and lands at Brunn, it is not by a mean sub¬ 
mission to Duke William that I should ever keep 
them from Raoul the Norman plunderer that had 
seized upon them. They must be kept at the sword’s 
point, and at the sword’s point must these thine own 
good house and lands be maintained. The protection 
of Lanfranc, given to the noble maiden and heiress of 
Ey, will not be extended to the wife of Hereward of 
Brunn, whom Normans call a rebel and an outlaw. 
Oh, Alftrude, the wife of a soldier like me, and in a 
war like this, hath need of a soldier’s heart within her 
own bosom ! ’ 

‘ And I will find it or make it there, mine own 
Hereward ! I knew the danger, and all the risk, and 
thou thyself toldest me of it all before I became thine. 
As I live and love thee, and by all the saints to whom 
I pray for better times, I was thinking less of myself 
than of thee when I spoke that which I have spoken. 
Thou knowest the state of these great matters better 
than a poor woman can know them, albeit I can 
understand the difference between Canute the Dane 
and William the Norman. If submission will not avail, 
or if submission be dishonouring-’ 

‘ It were in the lowest degree base and dishonour¬ 
able ; for although I came over into England at thy 
summons, it was to fight, and not to submit; and I 



LIVING AT EY 187 

have since so pledged my faith to the Abbat of Ely 
and to all the good lords in the Camp of Refuge, that 
I would rather perish in these the first days of my 
happiness than forego or wax cold in the good cause/ 

'Then fight on, mine own brave H ere ward ! And 
come what may, I will never murmur so that I be 
near to thee ; and whether we live in plenty at Ey or 
at Brunn, or wander through the wild fens poorer 
and more unprovided than is the poorest churl that 
now dwelleth within these gates, thou shalt hear no 
complaint from me. Let not the wide seas, and evil 
tongues, and false tales divide us evermore, and I 
shall be happy/ 

'And with such a bride, and such a wife, I shall be 
invincible. Cheer up, my own Alftrude. If submission 
will bring down utter ruin as well as utter shame, a 
bold and persevering resistance, and an unflinching 
hand-to-hand fight with the enemy, may bring her 
old laws and liberties back to England, and bring to 
us glory and happiness, and a peaceful and honoured 
life in after-times. I would be a peaceful man, even 
now, if so I might, and if I had less to fight for; for, 
albeit I love the art and stratagems of war, and the 
rapture that is given by the well-contested combat, 
I love not much blood, and never could get myself to 
hate any man, or parties of men, for any length of 
time. Were their rule less cruel and tyrannical to the 
English people, and were my good friends and allies 
secured in their lives, honours, and properties, I could 
sit down quietly and in good fellowship with these 
same Norman knights; nay, I would not refuse a seat 
on my hearth to Ivo Taille-Bois, or even to his brother 
Geoffroy/ 

'Name not that ugly name,’ said the Ladie Alftrude, 
blushing a little. 


188 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


And here the discourses ended. The gentle ladie 
had strengthened her heart with the great love that 
was in it, so as to bear whatsoever might befall her 
as the mate of Lord Hereward, the last champion of 
the Saxon liberties. 

While the lord and ladie talked this above stairs, 
there was something of the like discourse below stairs 
between the waiting-woman and the sword-bearer; 
for maid Mildred, merry as she was, could not but 
feel that Elfric was running a course of great peril, 
and that peace and tranquillity would be a blessed 
thing, if it could only be obtained. Albeit the young 
sword-bearer spoke not so knowingly of the old Saxon 
laws, and the dooms of King Canute and of Witans 
and Gemots, as did his lord, he found sufficiently 
good arguments to show that the war was a just and 
unavoidable war; and that while everything was to be 
hoped from bravery, there was nothing to be gotten 
by a timid submission. There was another considera¬ 
tion : 

‘ But for this war,’ said Elfric, f I must have become 
a monk ! I am now a soldier and liege-man to Lord 
Hereward, and ready, as soon as the lord and ladie 
permit, to be thy loving husband, O Mildred of 
Haddenham ! ’ 


CHAPTER XIV 


HEREWARD IS MADE KNIGHT 

Before the marriage festival was w^ell ended, the 
festival of the Epiphany arrived. The Lord of Brunn 
could not go to Ely; but he was now in constant 
correspondence with the good Lord Abbat and the 
prelates and lay nobles there ; and in sending off his 
last Norman prisoners, he had sent to tell the abbat 
that he must hold him excused, and that he would 
eat the paschal lamb with him, hoping before the 
Easter festival to have gained many more advantages 
over the Normans. The returning messenger brought 
Hereward much good advice and some money from 
Ely. Among the many pieces of good counsel which 
the Abbat Thurstan gave was this, that the young 
Lord of Brunn should lose no time in getting himself 
made a lawful soldier or knight, according to the 
forms and religious rites of that Saxon military con¬ 
fraternity which had been authorised by the ancient 
laws of the country, and which had existed long 
before the Normans came into England with their 
new-fashioned rules and unholy rites. The great lay 
lords at Ely and the Camp of Refuge had all been 
initiated, and their swords had been blessed by Saxon 
priests; and as all these knights and lords had agreed 
in appointing Hereward to the supreme command, it 

behoved him to be inaugurated in the Saxon knight- 

189 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


190 

hood; otherwise there would be a mark of inferiority 
upon him, and people might proclaim that he was 
not a lawful soldier. Now the young Lord of Brunn 
had thought well of these things before, and had 
been reminded of them by the taunting Normans. 
Any Lord Abbat or other prelate could perform the 
rites. The Abbat of Crowland had now returned to 
his house, and w r ould rejoice to confer the honour 
upon Hereward ; but Hereward’s own uncle, and by 
his father’s side, was Lord Abbat of Peterborough; 
and not only was it more suitable that the rites 
should be performed by him and in his church, but 
also was it urgent that the young Lord of Brunn 
should march speedily upon Peterborough in order to 
rescue his kinsman and the Saxon monks that yet 
lived under his rule from the oppression and tyranny 
of the Normans. This uncle of Hereward and Lord 
Abbat of Peterborough, whose secular name was 
Brand, had been sundry times plundered and mal¬ 
treated, and now expected every day to be dispos¬ 
sessed. Brand had not long been Lord Abbat, and 
he had put on the Peterborough mitre, of silver 
gilded, at a time of the greatest trouble. His pre¬ 
decessor the Abbat Leofric had gone forth with the 
English Army of King Harold ; and, after Hastings, 
he had sickened, and, returning unto Peterborough, 
he had died on the night of Allhallow mass : God 
honour his soul! In his day was all bliss and all 
good at Peterborough. He was beloved of all. But 
afterwards, as we shall see, came all wretchedness 
and all evil on the minster: God have mercy on it! 
All that he could do had been done by good Leofric’s 
successor. Abbat Brand had given a large sum of 
money to Duke William, in the view of keeping the 
house and convent free from molestation. Always a 


HEREWARD IS MADE KNIGHT 191 

rich and always a bountiful man had been the uncle 
of Lord Hereward; and while yet a cloister monk 
and one of the obeclienticirii, he had given to the 
monastery many lands, as in Muscham, Schotter, 
Scalthorp, Yolthorp, Messingham, Riseby, Normanby, 
Althorp, and many other parts. Judge ye, therefore, 
whether the brothers of Peterborough were not largely 
indebted to Abbat Brand, and whether Abbat Brand 
was not the proper man to confer Saxon knighthood 
on his nephew. After the disastrous journey of Ivo 
Taille-Bois and his brother to Ey, the news of which 
w r as rumoured all over the country, Brand had dis¬ 
patched an intelligencer to his bold nephew, and had 
sent other messengers to his neighbours, and to all 
the good Saxon people that dwelt between Peter¬ 
borough and Stamford. He had beseeched Hereward 
to march to his rescue, and to the rescue of his 
house; and Hereward, like the duteous nephew and 
loving kinsman, had sent to promise that he would 
be with him with good two hundred armed men on 
the octave of the Epiphany. 

But, before going for Peterborough, the young Lord 
of Brunn had much to do in the way of collecting 
men and arms, strengthening the house at Ey and 
the house at Brunn, and the Abbey of Crowland, and 
the succursal cell at Spalding; and much time he 
spent with Girolamo of Salerno in devising war 
stratagems, and in planning the means by which the 
whole fen country might be rendered still more defen¬ 
sible than it was, as by the cutting of new' ditches, the 
making of sluices and flood-gates, movable bridges, 
and the like. The men-at-arms, left by Ivo Taille- 
Bois to guard the manor-house near to Spalding, 
becoming sorely alarmed, and despairing of finding 
their way across the fens, sent a Saxon messenger to 


192 THE CAMP OF REFUGE 

the returned Prior of Spalding, with an offer to sur¬ 
render the house to the soldiers of Lord Hereward, if 
the good prior would only secure them in their lives 
by extending over them the shield of the church. 
The conditions were immediately agreed to : a garri¬ 
son of armed Saxons took possession of the moated 
and battlemented house, and the Normans were sent 
as war prisoners to Ely. Hereward gave orders that 
all due respect should be paid to the house, and to 
all other the goods and chattels of the Ladie Lucia; 
for albeit that ladie was forcibly the wife of Ivo, she 
was cousin to Alftrude and relative to King Harold, 
and her heart was believed to be wholly Saxon. As 
Brunn was a house of greater strength, and farther 
removed from that skirt or boundary of the fen 
country upon which the Normans were expected to 
collect their strength, Hereward removed his bride 
to Brunn, and there he left her in the midst of friends 
and defenders ; for his followers were now so numerous 
that he could keep his promise w r ith his uncle Brand 
without leaving his bride exposed to danger, and 
without weakening one of the sundry posts he had 
occupied, as well along other rivers as upon the banks 
of the Welland. 

By the octave of the Epiphany, being the thirteenth 
day of the wolf-month, or kalends of January, and 
the day of Saint Kentigern, a Saxon abbat and con¬ 
fessor, the Lord of Brunn was at the Abbey of 
Peterborough with more than two hundred well- 
armed Saxons ! and on that very night—a night of 
the happiest omen—was begun his initiation in the 
old abbey church. First, Hereward confessed himself 
to the prior, and received absolution. After this he 
watched all night in the church, fasting and praying. 
At times a cloister monk prayed in company with 


HEREWARD IS MADE KNIGHT 193 

him; but for the most part he was left alone in the 
ghostly silence of the place, where light was there 
none save the cressets that burned dimly before the 
effigies of his patron saint. But while he knelt there, 
Elfric his faithful sword-bearer stood guard outside 
the door of the church, whiling away the time as 
best he could, by calling to mind all the legends and 
godly stories connected with Peterborough Abbey and 
its first founders, and specialiter that marvellously 
pretty miracle which Saint Chad performed in the 
presence of his recent convert King Wolfere. Which 
miracle was this, according to the faithful relation of 
Walter of Whittlesey, a monk of the house: One 
day, after praying a long while with King Wolfere in 
his oratory, the weather being warm, Saint Chad put 
off his vestment and hung it upon a sunbeam, and 
the sunbeam supported it so that it fell not to the 
ground ; which King Wolfere seeing, put off his gloves 
and belt, and essayed to hang them also upon the 
sunbeam, but they presently fell to the ground, where¬ 
at King Wolfere was the more confirmed in the faith. 
In the morning, at the hour of mass Hereward placed 
his sword upon the high altar; and when mass had 
been said, and he had confessed himself and been 
absolved again, the Lord Abbat took the now hal¬ 
lowed sword and put it upon Hereward’s neck with a 
benediction, and, communicating the holy mysteries, 
finished the simple and altogether religious ceremo¬ 
nial : and from thenceforward Hereward remained a 
lawful soldier and Saxon knight. In the good Saxon 
times men were never so vain and sinful as to believe 
that a knight could make knight or that any lay lord, 
or even any sovereign prince or king, could give ad¬ 
mittance into the confraternity of knights by giving 
the accolade with strokes of the flat of the sword 


N 




THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


19 * 

upon the shoulders and with the tying on of spurs 
and hauberks, and the girding on the sword, and 
such like vanities. These things w'ere brought in 
among us by the Normans; and being brought in, 
our knights lost their religious character, and ceasing 
to be the defenders of the Church, and the protectors 
of all that wanted protection, they became unhal¬ 
lowed oppressors, depredators, barefaced robbers, and 
the scourges of their kind. And it w r as so at the 
very first, that these Normans did affect to contemn 
and abhor our old Saxon custom of consecration of a 
soldier, calling our Saxon knights in derision priest- 
made knights and shaveling soldiers, and by other 
names that it were sinful to repeat. 

The good Abbat Brand had now nothing more to 
fear for his shrines and chalices. Every Norman 
that was in Peterborough, or in the vicinage of that 
town, fled to Stamford ; and the Lord of Brunn, with 
the help of the Salernitan, strengthened the abbey, 
and made good works to defend the approaches to it, 
even as he had done at Crowland and elsewhere. 
Happy was Abbat Brand, and hopeful w r as he of the 
deliverance of all England ; but he lived not long 
after this happy day, and when he was gone, cowardice 
and treachery invaded his house, and monks who had 
lost their English natures made bargains and com¬ 
pacts with the Normans, and brought about many 
calamities and shames, as will be seen hereafter. If 
Brand had lived, or if Hereward could have remained 
at Peterborough, these things would not have hap¬ 
pened, and disgrace would not have been brought 
down upon a convent which for four hundred and 
more years had been renowned as the seat of devotion, 
hospitality, and patriotism. But the Lord of Brunn 
could not stay long on the banks of the Nene, his 


HEREWARD IS MADE KNIGHT 195 

presence being demanded in many other places. Be¬ 
tween the octave of the Epiphany and the quinzane 
of Pasche, Hereward recovered or liberated twenty 
good townships near the north-western skirts of the 
great fen-country, fought and defeated Norman troops 
in ten battles, and took from them five new castles which 
they had built. A good score of Norman knights were 
made captive to his sword ; but he had not the chance 
to encounter either Ivo Taille-Bois or his brother. 

As the paschal festival approached, Hereward re¬ 
ceived various urgent messages from the Abbat of 
Ely. These messages did not at all relate to the coming 
festivity, and the promise of the Lord of Brunn to 
be the Lord Abbat’s guest: while Hereward had been 
beating the Normans, and gaining strength on the 
side of Peterborough and Stamford, the Normans had 
been making themselves very strong at Cam-Bridge, 
and were now threatening to make another grand 
attack upon the Camp of Refuge from that side. 
Abbat Thurstan therefore required immediate assist¬ 
ance, and hoped that Hereward would bring with 
him all the armed men he could. Moreover, jealousies 
and heartburnings had again broken out among the 
Saxon chiefs, who had all pledged themselves to 
acknowledge the supreme authority of the Lord of 
Brunn. If Hereward would only come, these dissen¬ 
sions would cease. Other weighty matters must be 
discussed; and the discussion would be nought if 
Hereward were not present. Thus strongly urged, 
Hereward left his young wife in his house at Brunn, 
and taking with him nearly three hundred armed 
men, he began his march down the Welland in the 
hope of raising more men in that fenniest of the fen- 
countries, which lies close on the Wash, and with the 
intention of crossing the Wash, and ascending the 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


196 

Ouse in ships and boats. It grieved him to leave the 
Ladie Alftrude, and much did it grieve Elfric his 
sword-bearer to quit maid Mildred; but Hereward 
thought that his wife would be safe in his strong 
house at Brunn, and Elfric was made happy by the 
assurance that as soon as they came back again he 
should be allowed to marry Mildred. The Ladie 
Alftrude had shed a few tears, and her handmaiden 
had made sundry louder lamentations; but the ladie 
was full of heart and courage and hope, nor did the 
maid lament out of any fear. 

When the Lord of Brunn moored his little fleet of 
barks, and raised his standard on the shores of the 
Wash, many more good fen-men came trooping to 
him, as he had expected. Many came from Holland. 
And how did they come ? They came marching 
through the mires and waters upon high stilts, look¬ 
ing all legs, or, at a distance, like herons of some 
giant breed. Voyagers have related that in that 
sandy country which lies along the Biscayan gulf, 
and between Bordeaux and Spain, men and women 
and children all walked upon high stalking poles or 
stilts, as the only means of getting across their soft, 
deep sands; and here, in the most marshy part of 
the fens, men, women, and children were trained to 
use the same long wooden legs, not to get over dry 
loose sand, but to get over water and quagmire, 
and broad and deep ditches. These stilted men of 
Holland, who were all minded to go help in the 
Camp of Refuge, threw their stilts into Lord Here¬ 
ward’s bark; which was as if men of another country 
should throw away their legs, for without these stilts, 
we ween, there was no walking or wayfaring in 
Holland: but the thing was done to show that they 
were devoted to the good cause and put an entire 


HEREWARD IS MADE KNIGHT 197 

trust in the victorious Lord of Brunn, and that they 
would go with him, legs, arms, and hearts, wherever 
he might choose to lead them. 

At Lynn, on the other side of the Wash, still more 
Saxons joined Lord Hereward’s army, some of them 
coming in boats, and some marching by land. Ha ! 
had there been but five Herewards in England, 
England would have been saved ! 

It was on the eve of the most solemn, yet most 
joyous festival of Pasche, or on the 24th day of the 
month Aprilis, in the year of grace one thousand and 
seventy-one, that the Lord of Brunn arrived w r ith 
his host at the great house of Ely, to the inconceivable 
joy of every true Saxon heart that was there. Pass 
we the welcome and the feast, and come we to the 
councils and deliberations in the Aula Magna of the 
house. On the third day after the paschal Sunday 
all the Saxon lords and chiefs, prelates and cloister- 
monks, met early in the morning, or immediately 
after prime, and ceased not their deliberations until 
the dinner hour. On one great point there was no 
difference of opinion—the victorious Lord of Brunn 
was to hold supreme command over all the troops 
and bands, of whatsoever description, collected in 
the Camp of Refuge, and have the entire management 
of the war wherever it should be carried. On other 
heads of debate opinions were very various, but the 
greatest divergency of all was upon the question 
whether the Danes should, or should not, be invited 
again to the assistance of the Saxons. When all had 
spoken on the one side or the other, and with much 
vehemence of speech, the Lord of Brunn, who had 
been forced to correct his taciturn habits, and to speak 
on many occasions at greater length than he had ever 
fancied he should speak, rose and said : 




198 THE CAMP OF REFUGE 

‘ Prelates and chiefs, ancients and younger men, it 
one so young as myself may deliver opinions in this 
assemblage, I would say let us take heed ere we 
tamper any more with Danemarck. The woes of the 
Anglo-Saxons first began when the Danes crossed the 
seas in their nailed ships and came among them first 
to rob and plunder, and next to seek a settlement in 
this fat and fertile land of England. Our rubric is 
filled with Saxon martyrs butchered by the Danes. 
This noble house of religion where we now consult 
was plundered and burned by the Danes; and the 
Danes slew all the ancient brotherhood of the house, 
and did the foulest things upon the tombs of the four 
Saxon virgins and saints—Saint Etheldreda, Saint 
Saxburga, Saint Ermenilda, Saint Withburga. I am 
lately from the Abbey of Peterborough, where I read 
upon the monumental stones the names of the good 
Saxon abbats and monks of that house that were 
murthered by the Danes. The same thing happened 
at Crowland, and at fifty more religious houses. The 
Danes have been the great makers of Saxon martyr¬ 
doms. The worst famed of our Saxon kings are 
those who submitted to them or failed in conquering 
them; the name of King Alfred is honoured chiefly 
for that he defeated the Danes in an hundred battles, 
and checked their rapacity and blood-thirstiness/ 

' O Hereward of Brunn ! * said the Bishop of 
Lindisfarn, ' this is all true; but all this happened 
when the Danes were unconverted Pagans.’ 

'But good my Lord Bishop of Lindisfarn,’ quoth 
the Lord of Brunn, 'let us note well the conduct of 
the Danes since they have been Christian men, and 
we shall find as Saxons, that we have not much to 
praise them for. Had it not been for the unmeet 
alliance between Lord Tostig and the strangers, and 


HEREWARD IS MADE KNIGHT 199 

the invasion of Northumbria and York, and the need 
King Harold lay under of breaking that unholy league, 
and fighting Tostig in the great battle by Stamford 
Bridge, King Harold would never have been worsted 
at the battle of Hastings, for his armed forces would 
have been entire, and fresh for the fight, instead 
of being thinned as they were by that first bloody 
combat, and worn out by that long march from York 
unto Hastings.’ 

f It was an army of Norwegians that fought King 
Harold by Stamford Bridge,’ said the Prior of Ely. 

‘ I fought in that battle,' quoth Hereward, * and 
know that it was a mixed army of Danes and Nor¬ 
wegians, even like most of the armies that, for two 
hundred years and more, devastated this land and 
the kingdom of Scotland. But let that pass. Those 
armies came as open enemies: let us see the conduct 
of an army that came as friends. Only last year the 
good Saxon people from the Tyne to the York Ouse 
were deserted in the hour of success and victory by 
an army of Danes, commanded by the brothers of 
the King of Danemarck, who had been invited into 
the country by the suffering Saxons, and who had 
sworn upon the relics of saints not to leave this land 
until it was clear of the Normans. The two royal 
Danes took the gold of the son of Robert the Devil 
and the harlot of Falaise, and thereupon took their 
departure in their ships, and left the Saxons, with 
their plan all betrayed, to be slaughtered in heaps, 
and the whole north country to be turned into a 
solitude and desert, a Golgotha, or place of skulls.’ 

f This is too true,’ said the Bishop of Durham; c and 
terrible is all this truth ! ’ 

‘ But said the Bishop of Lindisfarn, ‘ the King of 
Danemarck’s brothers are not the King of Danemarck 


200 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


himself. We hear that the king is incensed at what 
those brothers did, and that he hath banished them 
from his presence and from the land of Danemarck, 
and that he hath sworn by the rood that he will send 
four hundred keels across the ocean, and take himself 
the command of the army.’ 

' Yet even if he come/ quoth the Lord of Brunn, f he 
may prove as faithless and as greedy for gold as his 
brothers ; or he may set up his pretended right to the 
throne of King Harold, our absent but not lost lord, 
and in that case we shall find that the Saxon people will 
fall from our side ; for if they are to be cursed with a 
new and foreign master, they will not overmuch care 
whether his name be William of Normandy or Svend 
of Danemarck.’ 

( Assuredly not quite so/ said the Prior of Ely, who 
opposed Hereward the more because the Lord Abbat 
Thurstan was disposed to agree with him ; ‘ assuredly 
not quite so, my Lord of Brunn, for there hath been 
large admixture of Danish blood in our Anglo-Saxon 
race, and Danes and English sprang, ah origine , from 
nearly one and the same great hive of nations in the 
north.’ 

‘ And so also do these North men, or Normans/ said 
Hereward, 'only they have more affinity to Danes and 
Norwegians than to us; and while the Danish pirates 
were ravaging the coasts of England, Rollo ravaged the 
coasts of France, and gained a settlement of sovereignty, 
and gave the name of Normandy to the country which 
has now set forth these new conquerors and devastators 
upon England. Trace back our blood to the source, 
and I, and the Lord Abbat Thurstan as well as I, and 
many other true Englishmen, natives of the English 
Danelagh, may be called half Danes; but a man can 
have only one country, and only one people that he can 


HEREWARD IS MADE KNIGHT 201 

call countrymen, and these admixtures of blood in parts 
and parcels of England will not be considered by the 
English people at large ; and let it be Danes, or let it 
be Normans, it will be the same to them.’ 

‘But,’ said the Abbat of Cockermouth, ‘the Danes 
be now very poor, and their king will not be able to 
raise an army sufficiently strong to aim at any great 
thing by himself.' 

f And therefore is it,’ quoth the Lord of Brunn, ‘that 
come king or come king’s brothers, they will get what 
they can from us poor Saxons as the price of their 
assistance, then get all the gold they can get from the 
Normans as the price of their neutrality, then betray 
all such of our secrets as they possess, and then embark 
and sail away for their own country, leaving us in a far 
worse plight than before. I say, let us not send for 
them, or ask their aid at all! If a people cannot 
defend themselves by their own swords, they will never 
be defended at all. If England cannot be saved with¬ 
out calling in one foreign people to act against another, 
she will never be saved. If this king of Danemarck 
comes this year he will act as his kinsmen did last year 
and we shall rue the day of his coming. Wherefore, I 
say, let us pray for the speedy return of King Harold, 
and let us keep what little store of gold and silver we 
possess to nurture and pay our own native soldiers, and 
to purchase in the Netherlands such munition and war¬ 
like gear as we may yet need; but let us not w r aste it 
by sending into Danemarck.’ 

‘Were our enemies less numerous and powerful/ 
said one of the chiefs, ‘we still might hope to stand 
our ground, in this wet and difficult corner of England 
alone and unaided !’ 

‘ We shall be the better able to stand our ground 
against any foe if we be on our guard against false 





202 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


friends, and keep our money and our own counsels/ 
said Abbat Thurstan. ‘ Lord Here ward hath reason 
for all he saith; take my word for it he is right.’ 

But there were many there that would not take my 
Lord Abbat’s word, and that would not be persuaded 
by the arguments of the Lord of Brunn; and in an in¬ 
auspicious hour it was determined to send an embassage 
from the lords and prelates in the Camp of Refuge 
to the king and lords and free rovers of Danemarck, 
to implore their aid and assistance, and to present them 
with a sum of money, as the earnest of a large future 
reward. The strong money-box at the shrines of Ely 
church, wherein the pilgrims deposited their offerings, 
was now in reality broken open and emptied; at 
which some of the unworthy members of the house 
who had most opposed Hereward and their Lord Abbat 
went about whispering and muttering, in the corners of 
the cloisters, and even among the townfolk of Ely, that 
sacrilege had been committed. Yet was the total sum 
thus procured so very disproportionate to the well- 
known appetites of the Danes for money, that a collec¬ 
tion was made in the Camp of Refuge, and even Jews 
were secretly invited from Norwich and St. Edmund- 
bury in order to see whether they could be tempted 
to advance some money upon bonds : and here were 
raised fresh whisperings and murmurings about impiety, 
together with severe censures on Abbat Thurstan for 
want of uniformity or consistency of conduct, seeing 
that he had formerly been the sworn foe to all the 
Israelites whom the Normans had brought over in their 
train; and that, nevertheless, the convent were now 
sending for the Jews to open accounts and dealings 
with them. It suited not these backbiters to remem¬ 
ber that they themselves, in determining that the aid 
of the Danes should be required, had agreed that 


HERE WARD IS MADE KNIGHT 20 3 

money should and must be sent to them, and that 
when Abbat Thurstan said there was but very little 
money in the house, they themselves had recom¬ 
mended sending for the Israelites who made a trade of 
usury. All points connected with the unhappy busi¬ 
ness had been decided, after the public discussions in 
the hall, by the members of the house in close chapter, 
wherein the Lord Abbat had only given his vote as 
one. But these unfaithful monks and untrue English¬ 
men hoped to make people believe that their opinions 
had been overruled, and that Thurstan was answerable 
for everything. 

It w r as also noticed—although not by the abbat and 
the monks that were faithful unto him, and that were 
never allowed to hear any of the whisperings and 
murmurings—that several of those who had most 
eagerly voted for calling in the assistance of the Danes 
shrugged their shoulders whenever men mentioned 
the expected invasion of the fen country and the new 
attack on the Camp of Refuge, and spoke of the 
Norman as a pow r er too formidable to be resisted by 
the English, or by any allies that the English could 
now procure. 


CHAPTER XV 


THE CASTLE AT CAM-BRIDGE AND A BATTLE 

When the Normans first came into England, the town of 
Cam-bridge, or Grant-bridge, was not the stately town 
which we have seen it since, nor was it the flourishing 
place which it had been in the time of the Saxon Hep¬ 
tarchy. According to the Venerable Bede, Sebert, or 
Sigebert, King of the East Angles, by the advice of 
Felix the bishop, instituted within his kingdom a 
school for learning, in imitation of what he had seen in 
France; and this school is believed to have been fixed 
on the very spot where the town of Cam-bridge now 
stands. Others there are who say that a school had 
flourished there in the time of the Romans, and that 
Sebert, or Sigebert, only restored this school in the 
year of our Lord six hundred and thirty. Certain it is 
that from a very early time Cam-bridge was the resid¬ 
ence of many students, who at first lived in apartments 
hired of the townspeople, and afterwards in inns or 
hostels of their own, where they formed separate com¬ 
munities, of which each was under its own head or 
principal. But in the fiery distraction of the Danish 
invasion of England, when abbats and monks and 
religious women were slaughtered at the feet of their 
own altars, and churches and abbeys and monasteries 
consumed, the pagan flames fell upon this quiet seat of 

learning, and left nothing behind but ashes and ruins. 

204 


THE CASTLE AT CAM-BRIDGE 205 

After this the place lay a long time neglected. There 
are some who write that when, about the year of grace 
nine hundred and twenty, King Edward, surnamed the 
Elder, and the eldest son and successor of Alfred the 
Great, repaired the ravages of the Danes at Cam-bridge, 
he erected halls for students and appointed learned 
professors; but these facts appear to be questionable, 
and it is thought that, although learning would no 
more abandon the place than the waters of the river 
Cam w r ould cease to flow by it, the scholars were in a 
poor and insecure condition, and were living, not in the 
halls or colleges of stately architecture, but under the 
thatched roofs of the humble burghers, when the blast 
of the Norman trumpets was first heard in the land. 
At that sound all humane studies were suspended. 
The town and territory round it were bestowed upon 
a Norman chief, and Norman men-at-arms were quart¬ 
ered in the houses which had lodged the students. 
But it was not until the third year after the battle of 
Hastings, when Duke William became sorely alarmed 
at the great strength of the Saxons, gathered or still 
gathering in the neighbouring isle of Ely, that Cam¬ 
bridge felt to their full extent the woes attendant on 
wars and foreign conquest. Then it was made a great 
military station, and a castle was built to lodge more 
soldiers, and command and control the town and all 
the vicinity. Just beyond the river Cam, and opposite 
to the little township, there stood, as there still stands, 
a lofty barrow or mound of earth, overgrown with 
green sward, and looking like those mounds which 
the traveller observes by Salisbury plains, and on the 
plain where the ancient city of Troy once stood. This 
great cone was not raised and shaped by nature. The 
common people, who will be for ever betraying their 
ignorance, said that the devil had made it, for some 



206 THE CAMP OF REFUGE 

ridiculous purpose; but learned men opined that it 
had been raised by the ancient Britons for some pur¬ 
pose of defence, or as some lasting monument to the 
great dead. When the Romans came and conquered 
the country, they had made an entrenched camp round 
about this mound, and had built a tower or guard-house 
upon the top of the mound; but these works had \ 
either been destroyed by the Danes or had been 
allowed to fall into decay and into ruin through the 
too great negligence of the Saxons. Now from the top ^ 
of this green hillock, looking across rivers and meres 
and flat fens, where the highest tree that grew was the 
marsh-willow, a good eye could see for many miles and - 
almost penetrate into the recesses of the isle of Ely , 
and the Camp of Refuge. The old Roman road or 
causeway, called the Ermine Street, which led into 
the heart of the fen country, ran close under the 
mound and a little outside the trenches of the Roman 
camp. Seeing all the advantages of the spot, as a ^ 
barrier for the defence of the country behind the Cam, ^ 
and as an advanced position on the side of the country, 
and as a place of arms wherein might be collected i 
the means of attacking the indomitable Camp of 
Refuge, the Normans cleared out the broad ditches 

4 

which the Romans had dug, and which time and 
accident or design had filled up, restored the double 
circumvallation of earthen walls or embankments, 
erected a strong castle within, and raised the Julius, v 
or keep or main tower of the castle, upon the summit 
of the mound, where the old Roman tower or guard¬ 
house had stood. They had not been allowed to do 
all this work without many interruptions and night 
attacks of the daring people of the neighbouring fens, 
or by the bold Saxons who had fled for refuge into the 
isle of Ely. But when the work was finished the 


THE CASTLE AT CAM-BRIDGE 207 

Normans boasted that they had bitted and bridled 
the wild Saxon horse of the fens. For some time past 
knights, and men-at-arms, and bowmen, and foot- 
soldiers, drawn from nearly every country in Europe 
to aid the son of Robert the Devil in conquering the 
little island of England, had been arriving at the 
entrenched camp and castle of Cam-bridge; whither 
also had come from the city of London, and from 
various of the towns and ports which had quietly 
submitted to the strangers, great convoys of provisions 
and stores of arms and armour and clothes; and all 
these aliens had been telling such of the English 
people as could understand them, and had not fled 
from the town, that they were going to assault the 
great house at Ely and the Camp of Refuge, and hang 
all the traitors and rebels they might find there, upon 
the willow trees. Nothing, however, could be under¬ 
taken in the land of marshes and rushes until the 
rainy season should be over and the w r aters somewhat 
abated. Now it happened this year that the rains 
ceased much earlier than was usual, and that the 
summer sun, as if impatient for empire, began to rule 
and to dry up the wet ground long before the season 
of spring was passed. There fell very little rain after 
the quinzane of Pasche, but after the feast of Saint 
Walburga the Virgin there fell no rain at all, and the 
weather became uncommonly dry and hot. It was 
pleasant to the eye to see the waters of the Cam, the 
Ouse, the Welland, the Nene, the Witham, and the 
other rivers retiring as it were into their natural beds, 
and flowing very smoothly and clearly towards the 
great Wash; to see green meadows re-appear where 
pools and meres had been, and flocks and herds 
beginning to graze where boats and skerries and men 
walking upon tall stilts had been seen but a few weeks 


208 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


before; to see, as far as the eye could reach, a 
beautiful green prospect, with rich pastures, gliding 
rivers, and adornments of woods and islands. But if 
this was pleasant to the eye, it was not conducive to 
the security of the Saxon chiefs. On the vigil of 
Saint Bede the Venerable, priest and confessor, which 
falls on the twenty-seventh of the decades of May, 
Eustache of Ambleville, a Norman captain of high 
repute, who had come over with William and the first 
incomers, and had fought at the battle of Hastings, 
arrived at Cam-bridge with more soldiers, and with 
orders from William to take the entire command of 
all the forces collected in the camp and castle. 
Eustache was so confident of an easy victory that he 
would not allow himself to think of the possibility of 
any defeat or reverse. As he looked from the top of 
the keep towards Ely, he said, triumphantly : 

‘ The waters are gone, and I am come. The Camp 
of Refuge is no more ! In three days’ time we shall 
be feasting in the hall of this rebellious abbat, who 
hath so long defied us ! ’ 

The other knights that were to follow him in this 
adventure were just as confident as Eustache of 
Ambleville, and the men-at-arms were already calcu¬ 
lating how they should divide the spoil that was to be 
made at Ely. Little did they think how r the shrine- 
boxes had all been emptied! Less still did they 
think of the great loss of goods they themselves were 
going to sustain ! 

Much did these Normans pretend to despise our 
Saxon fathers for their ignorance of the stratagems 
of war, and for their general dulness : and yet it must 
be confessed that they themselves gave very many 
proofs of ignorance and dulness, as well as of great 
negligence, the fruit of the unwise contempt in which 


THE CASTLE AT CAM-BRIDGE 209 

they held their adversaries. Before the arrival of 
Eustache some few of the Normans had ridden along 
the causeway as far as they could conveniently go on 
horseback; but for the state of the country beyond 
their ride they trusted to mere report, taking no pains 
whatever to inform themselves accurately. They 
had all been told of the extraordinary deeds which 
Hereward had performed, but they gave the whole 
merit of these exploits to Crowland devils and other 
fiends and goblins that were not to be feared in 
summer weather or in daylight. They had been told 
that the Lord of Brunn was a well-skilled commander, 
but they would not believe that any Saxon what¬ 
soever could be a great soldier. Instead of being 
cautious and silent as to their intended attack, they 
had been loudly proclaiming it on every side. Certes, 
Duke William was a knowing soldier himself, and one 
that did great things in war, being cautelous and 
discreet; but, wherever he was not, his chiefs in 
command did not much. It was rather for the sake 
of avoiding the heat of the day than for any other 
reason that Eustache resolved to begin his march at 
midnight. He did not think of surprising the Saxons, 
and, as for being surprised by them, he scornfully 
laughed at the notion. He wished, he said, that the 
rebels and traitors should know that he was coming, in 
order that they might collect all their forces in the camp, 
and so afford him the opportunity of destroying them 
all at one blow. His chief fear was that Hereward 
the Saxon would flee from the mere terror of his 
name. 

On the midnight which followed the feast of Saint 
Bede the Normans began to issue from their castle 
and camp. There shone a bright moon along the 
causeway where they formed their array. First went 


o 



210 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


a great troop of horse with lances and long pennants 
floating from them. Next went a body of archers 
bearing long bows and quivers w r ell stocked with long 
arrows. Then followed a large and miserable com¬ 
pany of Saxon serfs and hinds, w r ho had been forcibly 
impressed into the service, and who were laden like 
beasts of burthen, carrying stores and provisions on 
their backs, and hurdles, and planks, and other pieces 
of timber, by means of which these too confident 
Normans hoped to be able to cross every ditch, 
stream, and river. After this unhappy company there 
marched another band of archers; and then there 
went another and still greater body of horse; and in 
the rear of all were more bowmen. As the raised 
road was very narrow the horsemen marched only two 
abreast, and the footmen only three abreast; and 
thus, as the total number of the army w r as great, the 
line was very long and thin ; and the knights riding 
in the rear would seldom either hear or see what was 
passing in the van. Yet merrily and thoughtlessly 
they went on singing their Norman w r ar-songs, their 
bridles ringing sharp and clear in the cool night air 
as if to accompany the music of their songs, and their 
bright lance-heads glinting in the moon light: thus 
merrily and thoughtlessly until the van came abreast 
of Fenny Ditton, where the road or causeway w r as 
flanked on either side by a broad deep ditch or canal, 
and by a long belt of thick-growing willows and alders. 
But here Eustache, and the other knights that rode 
in the van, heard a loud voice shouting in very good 
Norman-French: f Halt, horse and foot! No further 
to-night! Saxons true do forbid your advance ! ’ 

And, well nigh at the same moment those knights 
and soldiers that rode in the rear heard another loud 
voice shouting: f Halt, Normans! Halt ye must, 


THE CASTLE AT CAM-BRIDGE 211 

but ye shall not get back to Cam-bridge unless ye can 
swim the ditch/ 

It seemed as though some hollow willow-trees had 
spoken, for neither in front nor rear was there a man 
seen. But presently the loud voices spoke again, and 
a still louder voice was heard about mid-way between 
the two, and all the three voices cried: e Saxons, your 
bow-strings to your ears, and next a charge for 
England and Lord Hereward ! * 

As soon as these words were heard in the centre, 
the Saxon serfs, whom the Normans had impressed, 
threw the provisions and stores they carried right 
across the broader ditches; threw down the hurdles 
and beams and timber on the road, and then, with a 
wild yell, rushed into the water and swam across to 
the covering of the trees. But in the centre those 
trees were all alive before these men reached them, 
and no sooner were they seen to be safe than a rush 
was made towards the ground which they had aban¬ 
doned. All fen-men swim, but to make their passage 
the quicker light bridges were laid across the ditches, 
and moving from the right-hand side of the road and 
from the left-hand side two bodies of Saxons, well- 
armed with bows and billhooks, established themselves 
on the causeway just where Eustache’s long line was 
broken. In vain did the Normans nearest to it think 
of closing up that fatal gap; the Saxon serfs had so 
thrown about their timber on the road that they could 
not cross it without falling or stumbling. The Saxons, 
who had just got into the gap, making themselves 
shields of the hurdles, fought fiercely with bill and bow, 
and their comrades behind the willow-trees smote the 
thin Norman lines on both sides with their arrows. 
Eustache of Ambleville, without seeing or knowing 
that his army was cut in twain, went charging along 


212 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


the causeway with his van, the Saxon arrows rattling 
on their steel jackets all the while; for here, as in the 
centre and rear, every tree that grew on either side the 
road covered some Saxon bowman. But short was 
Eustache’s career, for he found the causeway cut away 
before his horse’s feet, and a trench, much broader 
than any horse could leap, cut across from ditch to 
ditch; and beyond this trench was a good barricade 
formed of felled trees, after the fashion used by that 
true Saxon the late Lord Abbat of Saint Albans: and 
from behind that breastwork and across the trench 
there came such a flight of arrows and spears and 
javelins, and other missiles, that neither Eustache nor 
any of his people could stand it. Then the trumpet in 
the van sounded the retreat. The Norman knight, 
commanding in the rear, had sounded the retreat 
before this, and finding that he could not force his way 
forward, he had begun to retrace his steps towards 
Cam-bridge Castle; but this rearward knight had not 
gone further in arrear than Eustache had careered in 
advance ere he found the road broken, and a barricade 
of freshly cut willow-trees laid across it with bowmen 
and billmen behind it. Horsemen and archers beinff 

O 

mixed, as in the van, the rear turned back again along 
the causeway, as if determined to drive the Saxons 
from off the road and so unite themselves with the van 
from which they were severed ; and thus van and rear 
were moving in opposite directions—were rushing to 
meet and hustle against each other on that narrow 
way, even as waves beat against waves in a mighty 
storm. Their meeting would have been very fatal; 
but they could not meet at all, for the Saxons that had 
made the great gap had been reinforced from either 
side; they had made barricades of the timber, and 
they plied with their sharp archery the heads of both 


THE CASTLE AT CAM-BRIDGE 213 

the Norman columns, while other Saxons assailed those 
columns on their flanks, and still another band, throwing 
a flying-bridge over the chasm, where Eustache had 
been made to halt, and turn back, charged along the 
causeway, still shouting, ‘Here ward for England! 
Pikes, strike home, for the Lord of Brunn sees ye ! ’ 
And foremost of all those pikes was the Lord Here- 
w r ard himself, who shouted more than once, ‘ Stop, 
Eustache ! Run not so fast, Eustache of Ambleville ! 
This is not the way to the Camp of Refuge ! ’ 

Broken, confused beyond all precedent of confusion, 
disheartened, assailed on every side, and driven to de¬ 
speration, the Normans began to leap from the fatal 
narrow causeway into the ditches, where many of the 
heavily-armed men and divers knights were drowned. 
Some surrendered to Lord Hereward on the road, and 
were admitted to quarter. Others were killed in 
heaps ; and the rest, succeeding in crossing the ditches, 
and in getting through the willow groves, ran for their 
lives across the open country towards Cam-bridge. 
Dry as the season was, there were still many bogs and 
morasses in those plains, and into these many of the 
panic-stricken fugitives ran and sank up to their necks. 
As Girolamo, the Salernitan, led one of the parties of 
Saxons in pursuit, he muttered to himself in his own 
tongue, ‘Those Normans in English bogs look like to 
Mariuses in the marshes of Minturnum ! ’ Those were 
the most fortunate that sank where the sedges grew 
thick, or the bulrushes concealed them. Those who 
showed their heads above the bog were for the most 
part slain by spears or arrows. In all, not one-third of 
the force, which Sir Eustache had led forth a few 
hours before with so much pride and confidence, got 
back alive to the camp and castle at Cam-bridge : all 
the horses had been drowned or suffocated, or wounded. 


214 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


and rendered useless, or killed or taken. Provisions, 
stores, and all the implements of the army had been 
lost; and, although Eustache of Ambleville had escaped 
with life, he had left his standard behind him in the 
hands of the Lord Hereward, who, after this signal 
victory, returned in triumph, and with his spolia opima, 
to Ely Abbey, where the monks in the choir sang Te 
JDeam Laudamus . 

As for Eustache of Ambleville, he soon quitted the 
command of the post at Cam-bridge, and cursing the 
fen country, as a place where knights and horses 
were of no use, he made the best haste he could back 
to London city. For many a long day the Normans 
left at Cam-bridge would not venture outside the walls 
of their castle. 

It boots not to tell of what became of that other 
Norman force collected in Huntingdon for the invasion 
of the isle of Ely. Was it not overthrown and totally 
discomfited at Fenny Stanton? And was not this, 
and were not other victories gained by the Saxons 
from the Camp of Refuge, recited in the songs in 
praise of Lord Hereward, which the Saxon people now 
began to sing about the streets of our cities and great 
towns, even in the hearing of their Norman oppressors? 


CHAPTER XVI 


THE TRAITOROUS MONKS OF PETERBOROUGH 

But the Lord of Brunn could not be everywhere. 
While he was gaining great victories on the southern 
side of the Fen Country, the Normans were gaining 
strength in the north, and were receiving the aid of 
cowards and traitors. Brand, the uncle of Lord Here- 
ward, and the good Lord Abbat of Peterborough, who 
had ever laboured to keep his convent true to their 
own saints and to their own country, was now lying by 
the side of the abbats, his predecessors, under the 
stone-flooring of the abbey-church; and with him had 
died all the English spirit of the place. The monks 
began to murmur, for that they were called upon to 
contribute to the sustenance of the Saxon fighting men 
that had been left to guard their house; and for that 
they had been called upon to send some small matter 
of gold and silver for the use of the brave Saxons that 
were maintaining the liberties of England in the Camp 
of Refuge. Having, by their own representations and 
entreaties, brought about the removal of nearly every 
bowman and billman that Hereward had left behind 
him, these monks next began to turn up their eyes, 
and say that they had no armed strength wherewith 
to withstand the Normans, and that therefore it were 
better to make terms with Ivo Taille-Bois, and cease 

all connection and correspondence with the Lord of 

215 


216 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


Brunn and that faction. But happily even at Peter¬ 
borough, when the good Abbat Brand was dead, not 
all the monks were traitorous. Some of them made 
haste to inform their late abbat’s nephew, and the 
hope and stay of England, of w hat was passing; and 
the Lord Here ward made haste to apply some remedy 
to this foul disorder. 

Great had been the wrath excited among the Nor¬ 
mans by that last great act of Abbat Brand’s life—the 
Saxon knighthood of Lord Hereward. Duke William 
had sw r orn by the splendour of God that the abbat 
should rue the day on wdnch he had given his benedic¬ 
tion to the sword of a rebel; but a greater than kings 
had saved good Brand from this kingly fury. When 
he knew that he w r as dead, William named as his 
successor that terrible Norman, the Abbat Torauld of 
Fescamp, who always w r ore a coat of mail under his 
rochet, and who wielded the sword and battle-axe 
much oftener or much more willingly than he carried 
the crosier. This terrible Torauld had been wont to 
govern his monks even in foreign parts as captains 
govern their turbulent soldiery; and whenever any 
opposition w r as offered to him, it was his custom to cry, 
‘ Come hither, my men-at-arms ! ’ and upon men-at- 
arms he always depended for the enforcing of his 
ecclesiastical discipline. Where he ruled there were 
few penances except such as were inflicted with his 
own hand ; for he was a very choleric man, and would 
smite his monks and novices over their fleshiest parts 
with the flat of his heavy sword, and tweak their noses 
with his sharp steel gloves, and strike them over their 
shaven crowns with his batoon. Terrible as a man, 
and still more terrible as an abbat, was this same 
Torauld of Fescamp. Monks crossed themselves, and 
said Libera nos, whenever his name was mentioned. 


THE TRAITOROUS MONKS 217 

Now Duke William told this terrible Torauld that 
as Peterborough was so near to the turbulent fen 
country, and so little removed from the Camp of 
Refuge, it was a place well suited to an abbat who was 
so good a soldier, and that a soldier rather than an 
abbat was wanted to preside over that abbey. And 
1 orauld was further told, by Ivo Taille-Bois, who was 
roaring, like a bear bereft of her cub, for the loss of 
the manor-house at Spalding, that on arriving at Peter¬ 
borough he must take good care to disinter the Abbat 
Brand, and throw his body upon the dung heap; that 
he must well scourge the monks for their past con¬ 
tumacy, and make a quick clutch at such treasure as 
might yet remain within the house, seeing that the 
Norman troops were greatly distressed by reason of 
their poverty, and that, notably, he, the Vicomte of 
Spalding, had not a denier. 

‘Factum est,’ said Torauld, ‘ consider all this as 
done.' 

And in order that it might be done the more easily, 
Ivo Taille-Bois superadded one hundred and forty 
men to those that the fighting abbat brought with 
him, thus making Torauld’s whole force consist of 
one hundred and sixty well-armed Frenchmen. At 
the head of this little army, with sword girded round 
his middle and with battle-axe tied to his saddle-bow, 
the monk of Fescamp began his march from Stamford 
Town. As soon as the disloyal monks heard that he 
was coming, they drove away by main force the very 
few Saxon soldiers that remained about the house, 
and began to prepare sackcloth and ashes for them¬ 
selves, and a sumptuous feast for the Abbat Torauld, 
hoping thereby to conciliate him, and make him 
forget the bold doings of my Lord Abbat Brand. 

But before that uneanonical abbat and his men-at 


218 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


arms could get half way to Peterborough, the Lord 
Hereward, who had been duly apprised of all these 
late proceedings and intentions, arrived at the abbey 
with Elfric his sword-bearer, and about three-score 
fighting men; and before the monks could make fast 
their gates he was within the house. There be some 
who do say that the entrance was not got without a 
fight, and that some of my Lord Hereward’s people 
set fire to a part of the monastery; but I ween there 
was no fighting or beating of monks until Torauld, 
that very stern man, got possession of the house, and 
that there was no fire until a time long after the visit 
of the Saxons, when the monks of Peterborough, 
being disorderly and drunken, set fire to the house 
themselves by accident. The Lord of Brunn made 
straight for the house which King Etheldred of 
happy memory had built for the Lord Abbats. A build¬ 
ing it was very large and stately; all the rooms of 
common habitation were built above-stairs, and under¬ 
neath were very fair vaults, and goodly cellars for 
sundry uses; and the great hall above was a magni¬ 
ficent room, having at the upper end, in the wall, 
very high above the floor, three stately thrones, 
whereon were seated the effigies of the three royal 
founders, carved curiously in wood, and painted and 
gilt. In this hall stood Hereward and his merry 
men. Little did the monks wot of this visit. They 
thought the Lord of Brunn was many a league off, 
fighting in the fens; and when he came among them 
like one dropped from the clouds, and they saw in 
his honest, plain-speaking face that he was angered, 
the traitors began to blush, and some of them to 
turn pale ; and when this first perturbation was over, 
they began to welcome him in the very words of a 
speech they had prepared for the welcoming of 


THE TRAITOROUS MONKS 219 

Torauld. But Hereward soon cut their speech short, 
and asked the prior of the house what was become of 
the twenty men he had left there for the protection 
of the house. The prior said that the men had 
behaved in a riotous manner, eating and drinking all 
the day long, and had deserted and run away because 
they had been reproved. 

' It likes me not to call a priest a liar, but this 
is false! ’ said the Lord of Brunn; ‘ thou and thy 
French faction have driven away those honest men ; 
and here be some of them to speak for themselves, 
and to tell thee, O prior, how busy thou hast been 
ever since the death of my good uncle (peace to his 
soul !) in preparing to make terms with the French— 
in preparing to welcome the shaven cut-throat that is 
now a-coming to rule over this house ! ’ 

The men stood forward, and the loyal part of the 
monks (alas! that they were so few) stood forward 
also, and told the traitors to their faces all that they 
had been doing. The prior and the chamberlain, the 
refectorarius and the rest of the officials then began to 
excuse themselves on the plea of their weakness, and 
on the plea of the great danger in which they stood. 

‘You confess, then,’ said Hereward, ‘that you 
cannot of yourselves defend this house and its 
shrines.’ 

‘ Of a surety we confess it,’ said the prior; ‘ nor 
is this house to be held against the Normans even 
with a garrison of armed men. Peterborough is not 
Ely, good my lord ! There Saxon monks may hold 
their own; but here it cannot be done.’ 

‘So ho!’ quoth Hereward, ‘this is where I would 
have thee ! and therefore, O prior, since thou canst 
not keep thy gilded crosses and silver vessels, thy 
chalices and pateras, thy drapery and rich church 


220 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 

hangings, and as all these things and all other the 
property of this house will fall into the hands of the 
Norman thieves if they are not removed, I will and 
must carry them all off to Ely, where thou allowest 
they will be in safe Saxon keeping.’ 

'Wouldst thou despoil the temple of the Lord? 
Wouldst thou rob the shrines of Saxon saints?’ said 
the sacrist. 

' My Lord of Brunn, thou darest not do the deed/ 
said the prior. 

'It is not for thee, false monk ! to set the limits to 
my daring, when my conscience sanctions that which 
I am doing, and when the cause of my country urges 
it to be done,’ said Here ward. 

'I will excommunicate thee as a sacrilegious 
robber,’ said the prior. 

' Archbishop Stigand, the true primate of England, 
will excommunicate thee as a traitor to his country 
and traitor to his Church/ quoth the Lord of Brunn. 
' But I have little time to waste in words. Come, 
my merry men, be stirring! pack up all the plate, and 
all the hangings, and everything that we can carry 
with us.’ 

'They shall not have the keys,’ said the chamber- 
lain or treasurer of the house. 

'We have them already,’ quoth Elfric, who had 
been led to the chamberlain’s cell by one of the true 
Saxon monks. ' We have the keys already, and so 
have we the engraven seals of silver gilt. The sigillum 
of so good a man as Abbat Brand shall never be used 
by so bad a man as Torauld. See ! here it is, my lord ! ’ 
And so saying Elfric handed the good massive seal to 
his master, who kissed it as though it had been a relic, 
and then put it in his bosom. 

'This is sacrilege! This is the worst of thefts/ 


THE TRAITOROUS MONKS 221 

roared the prior. ‘This is done in the teeth of the 
law, and in outrage of the gospel. Sinful young man, 
knowest thou not the old Saxon law which saith : 
Sevenfold are the gifts of the Holy Spirit to the 
Church, and seven are the degrees of ecclesiastical 
states and holy orders, and seven times should God’s 
servants praise God daily in church, and it is very 
rightly incumbent on all God’s friends that they love 
and venerate God’s Church, and in grith and frith hold 
God’s servants; and let him who injures them, by 
word or work, earnestly make reparation with a seven¬ 
fold hot, if he will merit of God’s mercy, because holi¬ 
ness, and orders, and God’s hallowed houses, are for 
awe of God, ever to be earnestly venerated ? ’ 

‘ I know that good Saxon law/ said Hereward, ‘and 
bow my head in reverence to it! I earnestly venerate 
this hallowed house and all houses that be hallowed, 
and all the shrines that belong to them. I do not rob, 
but only remove to safe keeping what others would 
rob ; and, for any mischief that may be done to the 
goods of this house by such removal, I will myself 
make hot, not seven but seventy-fold, whenever 
England shall be free, and Harold restored to his 
throne.’ 

‘ Dreams ! ’ said the prior—‘ thy King Harold lies 
six feet deep in Waltham clay ! ’ 

‘ Unmannered priest, thou best in thy throat for 
saying so! King Harold is alive, is safe in some 
foreign land, and at his own good time will be back to 
claim his own. But come he back or come he not 
back, the Normans shall not have the spoil of this 
house. Thoy have spoiled too many hallowed houses 
already! Look at Saint Albans! Look at Saint 
Edmund’s-bury ! and at York and Durham and Lin- 
disfarn, and all other places, and tell me how they 


222 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


have respected Saxon saints and the property con¬ 
secrate of our monasteries ! * 

' Leave that to us/ said the chamberlain. 

' I tell thee again I will leave nought for the Nor¬ 
mans !' quoth Lord Hereward. 

And while he was speaking, his merry men all, aided 
and assisted by the honest monks, who revered the 
memory of Abbat Brand, were packing; and before the 
prior could finish a maledicite which he began, all the 
gold and silver, all the linen and silks and embroidered 
hangings, and all the effigies of the Saxon saints, and 
all the silver-gilded plates from their shrines, were care¬ 
fully made up into divers parcels, for facility of carriage, 
and the relics of the saints were packed up in coffers. 
Ywere, an un-Saxon monk of the house, had succeeded 
in concealing the testaments, mass-hackles, cantel- 
copes, and such other small things, which he after¬ 
wards laid at the feet of the French abbat; but Here- 
ward’s people had gotten all the things of great value : 
they had climbed up to the holy rood, and had taken 
away the diadem from our Lord’s head, all of pure 
gold, and had seized the bracket that was underneath 
His feet, which was all of red-gold : they had climbed 
up the campanile, or belfry, and had brought down a 
table that was hid there, all gold and silver; they had 
seized two shrines of gold and nine reliquaries of 
silver, and fifteen large crucifixes of gold and of silver ; 
and, altogether, they had so many treasures in money, 
in raiment and in books, as no man could tell another. 

The prior now snivelled and said, 'Lord Hereward, 
my Lord of Brunn, wilt thou then leave us nothing to 
attract pilgrims to our shrines ? Thou mightest as 
well carry off the house and the church as carry these 
things away with thee ! * 

'Our house will be discredited and we shall starve !.* 


THE TRAITOROUS MONKS 223 

said the sacrist. ' Lord of Brunn, leave us at least the 
bones of our saints ! ’ 

'Once more/ said Hereward, 'once more and for 
the last time I tell ye all that I will leave to the 
Norman spoilers and oppressors nought that I can 
carry. If I could carry away the house and the church 
and the altars, by Saint Ovin and his cross, by Saint 
\\ ithburga and her blessed and ever-flowing well, I 
would do it !—but only to bring them back again when 
this storm shall be passed, and when every true Saxon 
shall get his own/ 

Then turning to Elfric, Hereward said, ' Where is 
the sacrist’s register of all these effects and pro¬ 
perties ? ’ 

Elfric handed a very long scroll of parchment to 
his lord. This parchment had been placed in the 
hands of Elfric by the sub-sacrist, one of the honest 
party, and the parchment contained, in good Saxon 
writing, a list of the treasures, even as they had been 
left on the day of the death of the good Abbat Brand. 

' Now write me at the bottom of this scroll a receipt 
and declaration/ said the Lord of Brunn to the sub¬ 
sacrist. 'Say that I, Hereward the Saxon, have taken 
away with me into the Isle of Ely, and unto that 
hallowed house of the true Saxon Abbat Lord 
Thurstan, all the things above enumerated. Say that 
I have removed them only in order to save them from 
the thievish hands of the Normans, or only to prevent 
their being turned against ourselves—say that I swear 
by all my hopes of life eternal to do my best to restore 
them uninjured so soon as the Normans are driven out 
of England ; and say that I will make hot for every 
loss and for every injury. Mortal man can do no more 
than this/ 

The sub-sacrist, maugre the threats and maledictions 


224 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


of his superior the sacrist, and of the prior and re- 
Jectorarius, and all the upper officials, quickly engrossed 
on the parchment all that the Lord of Brunn wanted; 
and Hereward, being himself a scholar and penman, 
signed it with his name. Next he called for signatures 
of witnesses. Girolamo of Salerno wrote a sic sub- 
scribitur , and wrote his signature, and Elfric, who had 
improved as much in learning as in the art of war, did 
the same. Some others made the sign of the cross 
opposite to their names that were written for them; 
but upon the whole it was a good receipt, and solemn 
and well witnessed. The Lord of Brunn handed the 
parchment to the prior, bidding him to take care of 
it, and show it to his new abbat Torauld as soon as 
that Frenchman should ai*rive with his one hundred 
and sixty men-at-arms; but the prior cast the parch¬ 
ment upon the ground, saying that the house was 
impiously spoiled—that nothing would ever be gotten 
back again—that nothing was left in the house but 
woe, nakedness, and tribulation. 

e O prior!’ said Hereward, and he smiled as he 
said it; c O untrue and un-Saxon prior! the savoury 
odours that come upwards from thy kitchen tell me 
that there is something more than this. By Saint 
Ovin! it is not Torauld of Fescamp and his men-at- 
arms that shall eat this thy feast! Elfric, see those 
viands served up in the refectory, and we will eat 
them all, be they cooked or uncooked, done or under¬ 
done.’ 

f My Lord,’ responded Elfric, f the roast meats be 
done to a turn, the boiled meats and the stewed 
meats, and fowl and fish be all ready. The cook of 
this house of Peterborough, being no caterer for 
Normans, but a Saxon true, and one that hath owed 
his promotion to thine uncle, of happy memory, the 



THE TRAITOROUS MONKS 225 


Abbat Brand, hath seen to all these things, and hath 
advanced the good dinner by an hour or twain/ 

‘Then for love of mine uncle’s nephew, let him 
dish up as quickly as may be ! Elfric, what say thy 
scouts ? Where be the Frenchmen now ? ’ 

‘ Good ten miles off, my lord ; so do not over-hurry 
the meal/ 

‘ Prior, sacrist, chamberlain, traitors all! ’ said Lord 
Hereward, ‘will ye do penance with us in eating of 
this feast which ye had prepared for Norman stomachs?’ 

‘ The wrath of the Lord will overtake thee for this 
ribaldry! O Hereward of Brunn, we will not break 
bread with thee, nor sit at the table with such as 
thou art/ 

‘Then stay here where ye are, and munch your dry 
bread to the odour of our roast meats,’ said the young 
Lord of Brunn. 

And so, leaving the false monks under guard of 
some of his merry men, Hereward with the true 
monks went straight to the refectory and fared sump¬ 
tuously; and then, like the bounteous lord that he 
was, he made all his followers, of whatsoever degree, 
eat, drink, and be merry; and so heartily did these 
true Saxons eat and drink, that of that same feast 
they left nothing behind them for Torauld of Fescamp 
and his hungry Normans. And when it was time to 
get gone, and they could drink no more, Elfric and 
the sub-sacrist went down to the cellars and set every 
cask running, to the end that there should not be a 
drop of wine or a drop of ale or a drop of mead to cool 
the throats of the disappointed Frenchmen. 

Then the Lord of Brunn and his merry men all took 
their departure from the abbey of Peterborough, 
taking with them the chalices and pateras, the crosses 
and candelabra, the shrine-plates and the reliquaries, 

p 


226 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


the diadems and the tables, the linens, the silks, and 
hangings, and everything that was worth taking, and 
everything that Torauld of Fescamp and his men-at- 
arms most wanted to find and seize. And thus did 
the great house of Peterborough cease to be called 
the rich and begin to be called miserably poor: cle 
aurea erat paupertima. 

Judge ye the wrath of that terrible false French 
abbat when he came to the house at Peterborough, 
and heard and likewise saw all that had been done ! 
First he pulled at his own hair, and next he snatched 
at the prior’s head and tore his hair away by handfuls. 
He would not believe one jot of the tale that was told 
him about Hereward’s forcible entry and seizures; he 
would believe nothing but that they were all in 
league with the rebels and robbers of the fens, even 
as they had been when Abbat Brand blessed the 
sword of Hereward and made him knight, and took 
into his house a garrison of armed Saxons. The more 
they protested and vowed, the more he disbelieved 
them; and this first conference between these untrue 
Saxon monks and their choleric Norman abbat ended 
in Torauld’s shouting : 

‘ Come hither, my men-at-arms, and fustigate these 
liars! ’ 

And while the men-at-arms beat the commoner 
monks and the lay-brothers of the house, Torauld 
himself tweaked the noses of the superiors with his 
gauntleted hand, and drawing his heavy sw^ord, he 
applied the flat of it to the prior, the sacrist, the 
chamberlain, the refectorarius , and all the rest of the 
officials, beating them all even as he used to belabour 
his monks and novices in Normandie. But the true 
English members of the house did not share in this 
pain and humiliation, for the sub-sacrist and every one 


/ 


THE TRAITOROUS MONKS 227 

of them that was a good Saxon had gone off with Lord 
Hereward more than an hour before. When he grew 
tired of this, his first hard lesson in ecclesiastical 
discipline, Torauld caused the prior and the sacrist 
and every monk that had stayed behind, to be thrown 
into the dungeon of the house, and there he kept 
them two days and two nights without food and drink. 

Some few of the new Lord Abbat of Peterborough's 
men-at-arms thought that instead of fustigating the 
English monks, they ought to have followed Hereward 
and the English soldiers, and have made an effort to 
recover the good things they had carried off; but 
Torauld, who was bold only where there was no chance 
of resistance, would not venture a pursuit after an 
alert and most daring enemy into a difficult country; 
and so he swore to his people that the Saxon robbers 
must have been gone, not one, but more than three 
hours before his arrival; that instead of counting 
sixty men, they were six hundred strong at the very 
least. Whether they were sixty or six hundred, none 
of the men-at-arms who knew anything concerning 
the fenny country were at all eager for the pursuit, 
albeit they all imagined that the treasure which Lord 
Hereward had carried off with him from the abbey 
was great enough to pay for a king’s ransom. 

Thus the new Norman Abbat and his unpriestly 
and ungodly men entered upon possession of the 
ancient abbey of Peterborough: but feast that day 
was there none. 


CHAPTER XVII 


HEREWARD GOES TO BRUNN, AND IS DISTURBED THERE 

From Peterborough the Lord of Brunn made one good 
march across the fen country to Crowland, where he 
saluted the good Abbat and brotherhood, who had put 
their house into excellent order. And having tarried 
for a short season with the trusty monks of Crowland, 
he went down the river Welland unto Spalding, where 
he embarked the treasure which he had taken, and 
sent Girolamo of Salerno to have charge of it and see 
it safely delivered to the Lord Abbat of Ely. Having 
done all this, and having seen that the river Welland 
and the country about Crowland and Spalding were 
well guarded, Hereward went across the country to 
Brunn to visit his fair wife, whom he had not seen 
since the quinzane of Pasche. Elfric went with 
him, and in this manner there were two happy 
meetings. The old manor-house at Brunn had been 
beautified as well as strengthened under the eye of 
the Ladie Alftrude; and the old township, being 
ridded of the Normans, was beginningto look peaceful 
and prosperous as it used to do in the happy times of 
the good Lord Leofric of blessed memory. The un¬ 
thinking people were already forgetting their past 
troubles, and beginning to imagine that there would 
be no troubles for the future, or that, come what 

might, the Normans would never get footing again in 
22S 


HEREWARD GOES TO BRUNN 229 

the fen country. Elfric was not an unthinking young 
man, but his love for Maid Mildred caused him to 
take up the notion of the townfolk. He thought he 
might soon turn his sword into a reaping-hook, and 
that it was already time for keeping the promise 
which his master had made to him. Mildred said 
nay, nay, but in a manner which sounded very like 
yea, yea. 

Lord Here ward said, ' Wait awhile; ye are both 
young, and this war is not over. Beyond the fens the 
Normans are still triumphant, and the Saxons con¬ 
founded and submissive. Elfric, there is work to do, 
and short is the time that I can abide here.’ 

The ex-novice quietly submitted himself to the will 
of his lord; and for a short season he led a very easy, 
happy life, hawking or fishing in the morning, with 
Hereward and the ladie, and rambling in the eve with 
Mildred in the w r ood which lay near the house. One 
fine summer eve, about fifteen days after their coming 
to Brunn, Elfric and Mildred went rather further into 
the wood than it had been usual for them to go; and 
reaching the bank of a clear little stream, they sat 
down among the tall rushes, and after talking and 
laughing for awhile they became reflective and silent, 
and gazed at the stream as it glided by, all gilded and 
enamelled by the setting sun. They had not sate 
thus long when Elfric was startled by some distant 
sound, which did not reach the ear of Mildred, for 
when he said, ' What noise is that ? * she said she 
heard none. But Elfric was quite certain he had 
heard a noise afar off, and a sound of a rustling among 
the willows and fen-trees. 

'Well/ said Mildred, 'it will be the evening breeze, 
or the fen-sparrows, or mayhap the marsh-tits tapping 
the old willow-trees to hollow out their nests/ 


230 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 

' There breathes not a breath of air, and this is not 
the season in which the marsh-tit makes its nest in 
the old willows/ said Elfric. ' But, hark ! I hear the 
sound again, and . . . Ah ! what is that ? . . . By 
St. Ovin’s cross ! I see afar off a something shining in 
the red sunbeams that looks like the head of a Norman 
lance ! See! look there, behind those trees at the 
foot of yon hillock ! ’ 

The maiden looked, and although at first she saw 
nothing, she soon turned pale, and said: 

‘ In truth, Elfric, I see a spear, and another, and 
now another. But now they move not! they dis¬ 
appear.’ 

'Mildred/ said the young man, 'run back to the 
manor-house with thy best speed, and tell Lord 
Hereward what thou hast seen ! ’ 

' But wilt thou not go with me ? I almost fear to 
go alone through the wood.’ 

'The path is straight and dry,’ said Elfric; 'there 
is no danger; but I must go forward and discover 
what be these new comers, who are coming so stealthily 
towards the wood and the manor-house, and who 
bring lances with them and sound no horn.’ 

* But there will be peril for thee, O Elfric, unarmed 
and all alone as thou art.’ 

'Fear not for that, my Mildred; I will crawl 
through the rushes and keep this winding stream 
between me and these strangers. But fly to the 
house, and if thou chancest to meet any of Lord 
Hereward’s people, bid them hasten home and look 
to their arms.’ 

'Alas!’ quoth Mildred, 'when will this fighting 
be over ? ’ and having so said, she flew like a lapwing 
towards the house, while Elfric disappeared among 
the sedges and bulrushes. 


HERE WARD GOES TO BRUNN 231 

f Lances so near the wood! ’ said Hereward, ‘and 
no notice given! Our guard at Edenham must have 
fallen asleep ! * 

‘ Or mayhap they be gone to Corby/ said Mildred, 
‘ for to-day is Corby wake/ 

‘Or it may be/ said Hereward, ‘that thou and 
Elfric are both mistaken—albeit his good eyes are 
not apt to deceive him/ 

Before the Lord of Brunn had time to assemble 
his people, Elfric was back to speak for himself, and 
to give more certain and full notice of what was 
toward. He had gone near enough not only to see, 
but also to hear. The force was a great Norman force 
led on by Ivo Taille-Bois and Torauld of Fescamp, 
who hoped to take Hereward by surprise, and to 
recover from him the treasure which he had seized at 
Peterborough; for, being robbers themselves, they 
made sure that he meant to keep the treasure for 
himself. 

‘ What be their numbers ? ’ said the Lord of Brunn. 

‘Two hundred men-at-arms/ responded Elfric. 

‘ Bring they any of their great siege-tools ? ’ asked 
Hereward. 

‘ None, my Lord. They carry nothing but their 
arms, and even with that burthen they seem sorely 
fatigued. They are covered with our fen mud, and 
are all swearing that they should have been forced to 
travel without their horses.’ 

‘Then/ said Hereward, ‘although Girolamo be 
away, we can hold good this house and laugh at their 
attempt to take it. Call in all the good folk of the 
township, and then up drawbridge, and make fast 
gates ! ’ 

‘ Under subjection, my Lord,’ quoth Elfric, ‘ I will 
say that I think that we can do better than shut 


232 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


ourselves up in the house to wait for their coming. 
I heard their plan of approach, and it is this: They 
are all to remain concealed where they are until it be 
dark. Then Ivo Taille-Bois is to march through the 
wood, and surround the house with one hundred men, 
while that bull-headed Torauld, who seemeth not to 
relish the fighting with soldiers so much as he doth 
the fighting with unarmed monks, is to lodge himself 
with the other hundred men on the skirts of the wood, 
so as to prevent the people of the township from 
coming to the manor-house.’ 

f Art thou sure,’ said Hereward, ' that thou knowest 
Norman-French enough to make out all this sense 
from their words ? ’ 

‘ Quite certain, my Lord. I was close to them, 
and they talked loud, as is their wont. Nay, they 
talked even louder than common, being angered, and 
Ivo Taille saying that as it was Church business the 
churchmen ought to go foremost; and Torauld saying 
that Ivo did not enough respect the lives and limbs 
of Norman prelates. Set me down this Torauld for 
a rank coward ! They told me at Peterborough that 
he was as big as a bull, and for that much so he is; 
but from my hiding-place in the rushes I could see 


that he quaked and turned pale at the thought of 
leading the attack.’ 

f Thou wast ever a good scout,’ said the Lord of 
Brunn, ‘ but a wary commander never trusts to one 
report. We have lads here that know the paths and 
the bye-paths. We will have these Normans watched 
as it grows dark.’ 

In the meantime all the good people of the town¬ 
ship were forewarned, and called to the manor-house. 
The aged, with the women and children, were to 
stay within those strong walls; but all the rest were 


HERE WARD GOES TO BRUNN 2 33 


armed, and kept in readiness to sally forth. Of the 

sixty merry men that had stolen the march upon 

Torauld and got to Peterborough before him, some 

had been left at Crowland and some at Spalding, and 

some had taken up their long stilts and had walked 

across the bogs to see their kindred and friends in 

Hollandia. Only one score and ten of these tried 

soldiers remained ; the good men of the township of 

Brunn that put on harness and were ready to fight, 

made more than another score ; and besides these 

there was about half a score of hardy hinds who had 

•> 

followed the Ladie Alftrude from her home. 

As it grew dark the scouts reported that the Nor¬ 
mans were in motion, and that they were moving in 
two separate bodies, even as Elfric reported they 
would do. Then the Lord of Brunn went himself to 
watch their movements. He made out, more by his 
ears than by his eyes, that one body was coming 
straight on for the wood and the house, and that the 
other body was turning round the wood by a path 
which would bring them to a little bridge near the 
edge of the wood, this bridge being between the town¬ 
ship and the manor-house. By his own prudent 
order, lights had been left burning in one or two of 
the better sort of houses, and the whole town thus 
looked as it usually did at that hour; while bright 
lights beamed from every window" of the manor-house, 
to make Ivo Taille-Bois believe that the Lord of Brunn 
w r as feasting and carousing and wholly off his guard. 

‘ Thus far, well! ’ thought Hereward, as he ran 
back to the house. ‘It will take these heavy Nor¬ 
mans a good length of time to cross the stream and 
get into the wood; and while Ivo is coming into the 
wood on the one side, I will go out of it on the other 
side, and catch this bully monk and his people as in 


234 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 

a trap. And Taille-Bois shall rue the day that he 
turned his face towards Brunn.’ 

Leaving half a score of his best men in the house, 
and commanding all that were in the house to be 
silent and without fear, the Lord of Brunn sallied 
forth with all the rest of his merry men; and as 
soon as he and they were beyond the moat, the little 
garrison drew up the drawbridge and made fast the 
gate. When he counted his troop, he found it to be 
not more than fifty strong; but every man of them 
was vigorous and well equipped; and there was truth 
in the Saxon song which said that every true Saxon 
in arms was equal to three Frenchmen, and that the 
Lord of Brunn never turned his back even upon six 
Frenchmen. Warned by Elfric, that best of all 
scouts, when Ivo was crossing the stream, and calcu¬ 
lating his own time to a nicety, Hereward marched 
through a corner of the wood and took post on some 
broken ground near the end of the little bridge. His 
people were all as silent as the grave, and so they 
continued ; nor could they be seen any more than 
they could be heard, for they lay in the hollows of 
the ground with their faces prone to the earth, and 
their bows and weapons under them : and the night 
was now rather dark, and the trees which grew close 
behind the broken ground cast a deep shadow over 
it. The Saxons had not been long in this, their 
ambuscade, when they heard a loud shouting of f A 
Taille-Bois! A Taille-Bois!’ which came from the 
side of the manor-house; and the next instant they 
heard another loud shouting in their front of f Torauld ! 
Torauld ! ’ 

f So so!’ said Hereward, f the twain have timed 
their marches well! The monk will be here anon ; 
but let every Saxon among us remain on his face 


HERE WARD GOES TO BRUNN 235 

until he cross the narrow bridge, and then up and 
fall on ! * 

And as the Lord of Brunn said, so was it done. 
Eager to get possession of the bridge, the monk from 
Fescamp avoided the little township, and came straight 
to the stream which flowed between it and the manor- 
house, and crossed over the bridge with all his people : 
and no sooner were they all over than the Saxons 
started up like armed men springing from the bowels 
of the earth, and shouting ‘ Here ward for Eng¬ 
land ! 5 they fell upon their amazed and confounded 
enemy, who could neither discover their strength, nor 
form themselves into any order of battle. Instanter 
some of the Normans screamed that these were the 
devils of Crowland risen again; and so, screaming, 
they made a rush back to the bridge. Now the 
bridge was very narrow, and walled on either side 
with a parapet wall of brickwork ; and when the 
whole of Toraukl’s force began to follow the first 
fuyards, with a mad rushing and confusion, they got 
jammed together upon that narrow bridge, or falling 
one over the other they obstructed the passage. 
Torauld, that big monk, could not get upon the 
bridge at all, or near to it. And as he stood crowded 
and squeezed by his disordered men, and heard the 
Saxon battle-axe ringing upon their mailed armour 
and plated shields, he set up his big voice and cried, 
‘ Quarter ! Quarter ! Mercy, O Lord of Brunn ! ’ 

f Dost thou surrender, Torauld of Fescamp ? ’ shouted 
Herew'ard. 

e Ay, and at thy discretion,’ said the terrible abbat, 
no longer terrible. 

‘ Normans, do ye all surrender upon quarter?’ 
shouted Hereward, who had already slain three ot 
them with his own hand. 


236 THE CAMP OF REFUGE 

The Normans, not even excepting those on the 
bridge, or even those five or six that had gotten 
beyond the bridge, all declared that they surrendered 
at discretion. 

‘ Then/ quoth the Lord of Brunn, ‘ hand me your 
swords, and come hither and lay down all your arms ! 

And, in that grim darkness, Torauld, and the several 
leaders of the band, stretched out their hands and 
delivered up their swords to Hereward ; and Hereward 
as he got them, handed them to his sword-bearer, and 
Elfric made a bundle of them all under his left arm, 
singing, as he had wont to do in the choir at Spalding, 
but with a louder note, f Infixes sunt gentes !—The 
heathen are sunk down in the pit that they made : in 
the net which they hid is their own foot taken ! ’ And 
all the Norman men-at-arms, seeing but dimly what 
they were doing, and taking the trees on the skirts of 
the wood for Saxon warriors, piled their arms in a 
trice, and allowed themselves to be bound with their 
own girdles and baldrics. When Hereward’s people 
proceeded to bind Torauld, that tamed monster made 
a miserable lamentation, for he thought that the Saxons 
would bind him first, and then slay him; and none 
knew better than himself the intolerable wrongs he 
had done since his first coming to the kingdom, and 
the outrages he had been guilty of in the monasteries 
and churches of England. But Elfric bade him bellow 
not so miserably, and told him how that it was the 
custom of the Lord of Brunn not to slay his prisoners, 
but only to send them to a place of safe keeping, such 
as the Camp of Refuge, or the strong vault under Ely 
Abbey. And when the Normans were all bound, 
Hereward made his sword-bearer count them all; and 
Elfric, groping among them as the shepherd does 
among his sheep when the night is dark, found and 


HEREWARD GOES TO BRUNN 237 

reported that there were four score and ten of them. 
The rest had been slain, or had rushed into the stream 
to get drowned. 

All this work by the bridge had not been done 
without much noise. In making their sudden on¬ 
slaught, and in raising their shout for Here ward, the 
Saxons had made the welkin ring; and the cries and 
screams of the discomfited Normans were distinctly 
heard across the wood and at the manor-house. The 
Saxons within that house heard both cries, and well 
understood what they meant: Ivo Taille-Bois and his 
men also heard them and understood them; and so, 
cursing Torauld the monk for a fool, Ivo halted his 
men under cover of the trees; and then, after listen¬ 
ing for a brief space of time, and after hearing plainer 
than before the Norman cry of misericorde, instead of 
attempting to surround the house, Ivo began to retrace 
his steps through the wood. And although the night 
was brightening up elsewhere, it continued so dark in 
that wood, and his people ran in so great hurry, that 
at almost every step some of them missed the narrow 
path, or fell over the roots of the trees. And as Ivo 
thus retreated, his ear was assailed by the taunting 
shouts of the Saxons in the manor-house, and by the 
triumphant shouts of those who had sallied forth with 
Hereward to smite Torauld in the dark. 

But louder and louder still were the shouts in the 
good house of Brunn when its young Lord returned 
unhurt (and not a man of his was hurt) with the captives 
he had made, and notably with the once terrible Torauld. 

f Thou seest,’ said Hereward, ‘ that thy friend Ivo 
hath not stayed to keep his appointed meeting with 
thee at my humble house ! but stay thou here awhile, 
O monk of Fescamp ! and I will even go try whether 
I can overtake Ivo, and bring him back to meet thee! 





238 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


He hath the start, but is not so good a fenner as I am. 
So, come, my merry men all, one horn of wine apiece, 
and then for a chase through the wood and across the 
stream ! An we catch not the great w r ood-cutter, we 
may perchance cut off part of his tail. But first lock 
me up these prisoners in the turret. Our women and 
old men will suffice to take care of them while we 
follow the chase/ 

The Ladie Alftrude, and sundry other persons, 
thought and said that Lord Hereward had done 
enough for this one night; but the Lord of Brunn 
thought he had never done enough when there was 
more to do, and before Ivo Taille-Bois could get clear 
out of the wood, Hereward was upon his track, with 
fifty of his merry men. Some of the Normans, missing 
the ford across the stream, were captured on the bank ; 
but the rest got safely over, and ran for their lives 
across the plain, whereon they never could have run at 
all if the summer had been less hot and dry. They 
were closely followed by the Saxons, who took a good 
many more of them, and killed others: but Ivo was too 
far ahead to be caught; and it was all in vain that 
Hereward shouted and called upon him to stop and 
measure swords with him on dry ground, and on a fair 
field. So the Lord of Brunn gave up the pursuit, and 
returned to his manor-house, taking with him a good 
score more prisoners. And if the louts who had been 
sent to keep guard at Edenham had not gone to Corby 
wake, and had not drunk themselves drunk there, Ivo 
Taille-Bois would have been captured or killed, with 
every man that followed him, before he could have got 
out upon the road which leads from the fen country to 
Stamford. The rest of that night was given to festivity 
and joy. On the morrow morning Hereward brought 
his Norman captives forth from the turret into the 





HEREWARD GOES TO BRUNN 239 

great hall, and made inquest into their names and 
qualities. There were several knights of name among 
them ; several that had high rank and good lands in 
Normandie before ever they came to plunder England. 
Now these proud foreign knights condescended to 
address the Lord of Brunn as one of the military con¬ 
fraternity, and they spoke with him about ransom as 
knight speaks to knight. Hereward, knowing well 
how the Abbat of Ely had been constrained to lay 
hands on that which had been offered on the shrine of 
the saints, and to deal with unbelieving and usurious 
Jews, and how sorely money was needed throughout 
the Camp of Refuge, did not gainsay these overtures 
about ransoms ; but he fixed the total ransom at so 
high a price, that Torauld and the Norman knights all 
vowed that they could never pay it or get their friends 
to pay it. The Lord of Brunn, who believed them not, 
told them that they must pay the three thousand marks 
he had named, or live and die in the fastnesses of the 
fen country. 

Torauld, who loved money more than he loved his 
own soul, and who never doubted but that Here¬ 
ward had all the treasures he had taken from Peter- 

- 

borough, and meant to keep them for his own use 
and profit, offered, as lawful superior of that house 
and abbat appointed by King William, to give the Lord 
of Brunn a title to all those things as the price of the 
ransom for himself and the Norman nobles. But hereat 
the Lord of Brunn was greatly incensed, and said: 

f Robber that thou art, dost thou take me for a 
sacrilegious robber ? The treasure of Peterborough is 
not here, but at Ely, in the safe keeping of the good 
Lord Abbat Thurstan, to be kept or even used for the 
good of England, and to be restored to Peterborough 
with bot, and with other treasure, at the proper season. 







240 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 

But thou, O Torauld of Fescamp, thou hast no right to 
it, or control over it ; and if thou hadst it, it is not my 
father’s son that would barter with thee for the goods 
of the Church and the spoils of the altar ! Torauld of 
Fescamp, and thou Piron of Montpinchon, and thou 
Olivier Nonant, and thou Pierre of Pommereuil, and 
the rest of ye, I tell ye one and all, and I swear it by 
the blessed rood, that I will never liberate ye, or any 
of ye, until the three thousand marks, as ransom, be 
paid into my hands, or into the hands of the Lord 
Abbat of Ely! So, look well to it. Three thousand 
marks, or a lifelong home and a grave in the safest and 
dreariest part of the fens/ 

One and all, they again protested, and even vowed 
that so large a sum could never be raised for their 
liberation; and that they would not so much as name 
the sum to their friends and families. 

f Well/ said the Lord of Brunn, ' then to-morrow we 
will clap ye all on ship-board and send ye across the 
salt sea Wash for Ely and the Camp of Refuge/ 

And on the morrow, by times, all the Norman 
captives, gentle or simple, knights or men-at-arms, 
were marched off to the Welland and put on board 
ship and under hatches: nor even did they get free 
from their Saxon prison in the fens until twelve good 
months after their capture, when they got the money, 
and paid down the three thousand marks, together 
with some small pecunia for their meat and drink, and 
the trouble they had given during their captivity. 
And long did Torauld bemoan the day when he 
accepted the office of abbat of Peterborough, and went 
to take vengeance on that house on account of Lord 
Here ward’s knighthood. He came forth from the fens 
an altered and subdued man; and although he tyran¬ 
nically ruled a religious house for many years after 


HERE WARD GOES TO BRUNN 241 




I 






these his misadventures, he was never more known to 
tweak his monks by the nose with his steel gloves on, 
or to beat them with the flat of his sword, or to call 
out' Come hither, my men-at-arms.’ In truth, although 
he plucked up spirit enough to rob and revile monks, 
he never put on armour or carried a sword again. 

Thus had the good Lord of Brunn triumphed on the 
land which he inherited from his father and recovered 
with his own sword; thus within the good manor of 
Brunn had he foiled the stratagems of his enemies, 
and beaten them and humbled them, and made them 
the captives of his sword : but he could not long remain 
to enjoy his triumph there; his sword and his counsel 
were wanted in other parts; and deeming that the 
unwonted dryness of the season might perchance 
enable Ivo Taille-Bois or some other Norman lord to 
make another attempt upon Brunn, he took his ladie 
with him whither he went. A small but trusty garri¬ 
son was left in the old manor-house, together with 
sundry matrons and maids, but Mildred went with her 
ladie, as did Elfric with his lord. 

As they came to the Welland, on their way to Ely, 
there came unto Lord Hereward some brave men from 
the world beyond the fens, to tell him that a great 
body of Saxon serfs had gathered together at the edge 
of Sherwood forest and on the banks of the T rent, and 
that all these men were ready to join him and be¬ 
come his servants and soldiers. Hereward gave the 


messengers the encouragement they seemed to merit, 
and sent his sword-bearer back with them to see what 
manner of men the band was made of, and to bring 
them across the fens if he should find them worth their 
bread and meat. 

Now the men that had collected were hardy and 
fit for war, and many of them, being native to the 


Q 



242 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 

forests and trained to hunting, were keen bowmen. 
The Lord of Brunn, who knew the worth of the 
English bow, much wanted good bowmen; and thus 
Elfric would gladly have brought away all these 
foresters with him. But when the marching time 
came, sundry of these churls said that they were well 
where they were in Sherwood ; and for that matter 
so they were, for the Normans could not easily get at 
them, and they were lords of the forest and of all the 
game in it, and they robbed all that came near to the 
forest. But all the churls were not so churlish, nor so 
fond of living without law and order, nor so careless 
as to what became of their countrymen ; and many 
were the good bowmen that said they would go to the 
Saxon camp. Some of these upland churls, however, 
who had not led' so free a life as the fenners, and had 
not had such good lords as the Abbat of Ely and the 
Lord of Brunn, began to say to the men of the hills 
that were following Elfric, that they thought they 
w'ere engaging in an idle chase and a very useless 
struggle, inasmuch as they would still be all serfs and 
bondmen whether the Normans or the Saxons ruled 
the land. But Elfric, hearing this, bade them all 
remember that it was one thing to obey a lord that 
spoke their own tongue, and another to obey a stranger 
lord who spoke it not and despised it; that the good 
Saxon lords were ever merciful and kind, not putting 
more labour on the serf than the serf could bear, and 
feeding him and entertaining him w r ell when sickness 
or when old age allowed him not to work at all; and 
that the good old Saxon laws and customs did not 
leave the eyes, limbs, life, and conscience of the serfs 
in the hands of their lords and masters, nor allow' 
Christian bondmen to be treated as though they were 
beasts of the field; in which fashion the Normans 



HERE WARD GOES TO BRUNN 243 

were now treating them. Quoth a greybeard in the 
crowd : 

' There is some truth in what the young man saith. 
That was not a bad law which said, “ Let the churl 
keep the fasts of the Church as well as the lord, and 
let the master that feeds his serfs on fast-days with 
meat, denying them bread, be put in the pillory.” ’ 

' Ay,’ said another elder, smoothing his beard, ‘ but 
that was a still better law which said, “Let not the 
serf be made to work on the feast-days of the Church, 
nor to do any manner of work on the Sabbath. Let 
all have rest on the seventh day, which is the day of 
the Lord God ! ’ 

Here one who had been a mass-priest in the upland 
country, but who had fled from the intolerable persecu¬ 
tions of the Normans and was now armed against that 
people, spoke as one that had tasted books, and said: 

f Many "were our good old Saxon laws for keeping 
holy the Sabbath-day, and making the seventh day a 
day of rest for all that live in the land, whether rich 
or poor, master or slave. The fourth commandment, 
which the Normans set at nought in as far as the poor 
English serf is concerned in it, was a most binding 
law with all good Saxons, and was enforced by many 
royal laws and civil enactments, and with the imposing 
of penalties upon all such as broke the commandment. 
The laws and ordinances of King Edward the Elder 
said : “ If any one engage in Sunday marketing, let 
him forfeit the goods and pay a fine of thirty shillings. 
If a freeman work, let him forfeit his freedom, or 
redeem it by paying wite ; if a lord oblige his churl to 
work, let him pay wite.” And, after this. King 
Athelstane said in his dooms “that there should be 
no marketing and no labour on Sundays, and that if 
any one did market on Sundays he should forfeit the 





244 THE CAMP OF REFUGE 

goods and pay thirty shillings.” And, after this. 
King Ethelred said in his dooms: “ Let Sunday’s 
festival be rightly kept by all, as is becoming, and let 
marketings and folkmotes be carefully abstained from 
on that holy day; let huntings and worldly works be 
strictly abstained from on that day.” And by the 
laws of King Edgar no man was to work from noontide 
of the Saturday till the dawn of Monday ; and soulscot 
was to be paid for every Christian man to the priest, 
in order that the priest might pray for him and 
instruct him. And the canons of iElfric, inhibiting 
the breach of the sanctity of the Lord’s day, say: 
“The mass-priests shall on Sundays explain to the 
people the sense of the Gospels in English, and 
explain to them in English the Paternoster and the 
Creed, to the end that all the people may know the 
faith and cultivate their Christianity.” And in this 
very canon the pious iElfric saith, “ Let the priest and 
teacher beware of that which the prophet said —Canes 
muti non possunt latrare , Dumb dogs cannot bark!” 
But what are these Norman teachers and priests from 
beyond the sea but dumb dogs to the Saxon people, 
seeing they know no English and will not learn it ? ’ 
f Yes,’ said the ancient who had first spoken, f until 
these Normans came among us the bondman had one 
day in seven to himself, and on every other festival of 
the Church he was allowed to forget his bonds, and to 
take rest and enjoyment, and to think of his soul; 
but now we be treated as if we had no souls.’ i 

f And,’ said another of the serfs, ‘ in former days the 
laws protected the money and goods of a bondman, if 
so be he could obtain any, for the Saxon law said that \ 
the master must not take from his slave that which 
the slave had gained by his industry. But now the 
serf cannot so much as call his life his property.’ 


HERE WARD GOES TO BRUNN 245 

‘Nor can any other true Saxon call anything his 
own, unless he stand up and fight for it, and prove 
strong enough to keep it/ said Elfric, who was well 
pleased to see and hear that his discourse on the 
difference between the old bondage and the present 
was not thrown away upon the upland serfs. 

Quoth the priest who had before spoken : 
f Our old Saxon laws were chary of blood, and held 
in tender respect the life of all men, whether they 
belonged to the nobility or were in a state of villainage. 
Few crimes were punished with death or even with 
mutilation. The commandment that man shall do no 
murder was not only read in churches, but was re¬ 
commended and enforced in the laws and dooms of 
many Saxon kings. “ If any one be slain,” said the 
old law, “let him be paid for according to his birth.” 
If a thane slew a churl, he had to pay for it. . . / 

‘ Ay/ said one of the serfs, ‘ but the value of the 
life of a churl was not more than the price of a few 
bullocks; whereas hides of land or the worth of 
hundreds of bullocks was to be paid by him that slew 
a thane/ 

‘Tush!’ quoth Elfric, ‘thou canst not expect that 
the life of a churl can ever be priced so high as that 
of a noble, or that the same doom shall await the man 
that kills a lord and the man that kills a peasant! * 

The priest and all the bystanders said that such an 
expectation would be too unreasonable, and that such 
a thing could never come to pass in this w r orld; and 
so the discontented churl merely muttered that he 
thought, since it w r as allowed the churl had an 
immortal soul, even as the thane, that the life of a 
churl was worth more than a few bullocks; and then 
said no more about it, bethinking himself that even 
that price w r as better than no price at all, and that no 





246 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


Normans that he knew of had ever yet been made to 
make hot for maiming or killing a Saxon serf. 

Some few of these men returned into Sherwood 
forest, to live at large there, but the major part of 
them tied on their buskins, fastened their sheep-skin 
jackets, put their bows and quivers to their backs, and 
marched off merrily with the sword-bearer to join 
Lord Hereward at Ely or in the Camp. And after 
this, and at various times, many upland churls, dis¬ 
contented with their lot, came from the northern side 
of the Trent and from other parts of the country to 
join the Saxon army in the fens. It must not be 
thought that the Lord of Brunn was unmindful of the 
old laws, which ordained that no lord or free man 
should harbour or entertain the churl that had fled 
from his rightful owner; but Hereward felt that no 
Norman could have the right of property over Saxon 
serfs, and therefore he harboured and entertained 
such as came freely to him. If the case had been 
otherwise, he would, like the just lord that he was, 
have put collars and chains upon the serfs and have 
sent them back to their masters. 




CHAPTER XVIII 


THE DANES AND THEIR KING’S SON 

Svend Estrithson sat upon the throne of Danemarck, 
and was a powerful king and a great warrior, having 
fought many battles by sea against his neighbour the 
King of Norway. When his brother Osbiorn Jarl 
abandoned the Saxons and returned from England 
into Danemarck, Svend Estrithson was exceedingly 
wroth at him, and his anger was the greater because 
the Jarl had not only lost the treasure which William 
the Norman had given him as the price of his treasons 
to the English people, but had lost likewise nearly the 
whole of the Danish fleet; for a great storm arose at 
sea and swallowed up most of the two hundred and 
forty returning ships. Osbiorn Jarl escaped drowning ; 
but when he presented himself before the face of his 
brother the king, Svend loaded him with reproaches, 
deprived him of his lands and honours, and drove him 
into a disgraceful banishment. Even thus was bad 
faith punished, and vengeance taken upon the Danes 
for that they had both plundered and betrayed the 
Saxon people, who were fighting for their liberties 
against the Normans. 

Svend Ethrithson, being of the line of the great King 
Canute, raised some claim to the throne of England, 
and had ever considered his right better and more 

legal than that of William of Normandie. Before the 

247 




248 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 

arrival at his court of the earnest invitation of the 
monks of Ely and the great Saxon lords in the Camp 
of Refuge, he had resolved in his own mind to try his 
fortune once more on our side the sea, hoping that if 
he should do no more he should at least be enabled 
to make up for the loss of his great fleet, a loss which 
pressed heavily upon his heart, and destroyed his 
peace by day and his rest by night. He had sum¬ 
moned his jarls and chiefs, the descendants of the 
sea-kings or great pirates of old, and had taken 
counsel of the old sea-rovers and warriors who had 
been in England with the great Canute, or who had 
served under Canute’s sons. King Harold Harefoot 
and King Hardicanute. Now these jarls and chiefs, 
together with many of their followers, were well 
acquainted with all the eastern side of England from 
the Scottish border to the end of Cornwall; and they 
knew every bay, harbour, and creek on the coast, and 
all the deep inlets of the sea and the rivers which 
gave access to the interior of the country, for they 
had warred or plundered in them all, aforetime. 
Being called upon by King Svend to give their advice, 
these chiefs and nobles all said that another expedi¬ 
tion ought to be attempted without loss of time ; and 
it was agreed at a great meeting of the Viborgting, 
which corresponds with the Witenagemot of old Eng¬ 
land, that another great fleet should be got ready, and 
that the king or his eldest son should take the com¬ 
mand of it. Some doubts, however, occurred as to 
the present strength of the Normans and the present 
condition of the English; and, although they meant 
to betray them or conquer them themselves, the 
Danes proposed to begin merely as allies of the Eng¬ 
lish, and felt little good could be done unless the 
English on the eastern coast were unsubdued by the 



THE DANES AND THEIR KING’S SON 249 

Normans, and ready to receive the Danes with open 
arms. At this juncture a ship arrived from Lynn with 
the envoy from the Camp of Refuge on board. As 
soon as the Englishman had presented the letters and 
the gold and silver he brought to Svend Estrithson, 
the king called together his great council. The envoy 
from the Camp of Refuge was allowed to speak at 
great length before the council, and the shipmen of 
Lynn were more privately examined touching the pre¬ 
sent situation of affairs in the fen country. All doubts 
w'ere removed, and the fleet was forthwith ordered to 
get ready for the voyage to England. Already many 
thousands of long- and yellow-haired warriors had been 
collected for the enterprise, and now many thousands 
more flocked towards the fleet from all parts of Jut¬ 
land, Zealand, and Holstein, and from Stralsund and 
the Isle of Rugen, and the other isles that stand near 
the entrance of the Baltic Sea; for whenever an ex¬ 
pedition to the rich and fertile country of the Anglo- 
Saxons was on foot, the hearts of the Danes rejoiced 
in the prospect of good booty, even as the hearts of 
the coast-dwelling people rejoice when they hear that 
a rich wreck or a large fat whale hath been stranded 
near to their doors. King Svend Estrithson, of a cer¬ 
tainty, would have gone himself into England with 
the fleet, but his royal shield fell to the ground and 
broke as he was lifting it down from the wall, and a 
hare crossed his path as he was walking in his garden, 
and the priest his chaplain sneezed three times while 
he was saying mass before him, and he was greatly 
enamoured of the Princess Gyda, and in consequence 
of all these evil omens the king resolved to stay at 
home, and send his eldest son Knut into England. 
Taking with him the royal standard of the black raven, 
and many jarls of high renown into his own ship, Knut 





250 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


began his voyage forthwith, being followed by two 
hundred and fifty keels, large and small. The royal 
ship was rich and splendid; it had thirty benches ot 
rowers; its prow was adorned with a dragon’s head, 
the eyes of which were of precious stones and the 
tongue of red gold; and the sides and the stern of 
the ship glowed with burnished gold; the whole body 
of the ship glittered in the sun like some great and 
marvellous fish or some swimming dragon; and, in 
sooth, the whole ship was dragon-shaped. The masts 
and the cordage and the sails were surpassing rich 
and gay; the masts were covered with ivory and pearl, 
the cords seemed to be covered with white silk, and 
the sails "were of many and bright colours. There 
were cloths of gold spread all about, and the flag that 
waved at the mainmast-head was all of silk and gold ; 
and the windlass and the rudder were bepainted with 
blue and gold. And on board this right royal ship 
every warrior wore bright steel-chain armour, and 
carried a shield and battle-axe inlaid with gold and 
jewels, and each of value enough to purchase a hide 
of land. A few other ships there were in this great 
fleet only a little less splendid than that of Knut. 
The rest were of a coarser make, and with no adorn¬ 
ments about them except the figure-head at the prow 
and the banner at the mast-head; and they varied in 
size and burthen from the great ship which could 
carry two hundred fighting men, down to the little 
bark which carried but ten. To speak the truth, 
many of the fleet were little better than fishing barks. 
The summer wind blew fresh and fair for England, 
the waves seethed before their prows, and on the 
morning of that glad evening at Brunn when Lord 
Hereward captured Torauld of Fescamp and put Ivo 
Taille-Bois to flight and shame, nearly the whole of 


THE DANES AND THEIR KING’S SON 251 

the great fleet came to anchor off the Wash, and not 
far from the chapel of our Ladie. Knut, the king’s 
son, being uncertain and suspicious, like one that had 
treacherous plans in his own mind, despatched one of 
his smallest and poorest keels with a crafty and keen- 
sighted chief up the Wash and up the Ouse, to confer 
with Abbat Thurstan and the Saxon chiefs at Ely, to 
spy into the condition of the Camp of Refuge, and to 
invite the Lord Abbat and some of the great chiefs to 
come down to Lynn, in order to hold there a solemn 
conference with his jarls and chiefs. The messenger- 
bark proceeded on her voyage prosperously, and 
landed the cunning Dane at Ely. Good Abbat Thur¬ 
stan wondered and grieved that the prince had not come 
himself; yet he bade his envoy welcome, and feasted 
him in his hall. But still more did Thurstan wonder 
and grieve when he was told that Knut meant not to 
come to Ely but Avas calling for a congress at Lynn. 

f There may be danger,’ said the Lord Abbat to the 
cunning old envoy, ' if I quit this house, and the great 
thanes leave the Camp of Refuge, though only for a 
short season; but there can be no peril in thy prince’s 
coming hither, and assuredly it is only here that we 
can entertain him as the son of a great king ought to 
be entertained.’ 

The old Dane said that the prince his master had 
schemes of operation which would not allow him to send 
his ships up the Ouse for this present; that he would 
come hereafter, when good progress should have been 
made in the Avar against the Normans ; and that in the 
meanwhile it were best for my Lord Abbat, and some 
other of the prelates, and some of the great lay lords, to 
go down to Lynn and hold a conference, and make a com¬ 
bined plan of operations with the prince and the jarls. 

Much did the Saxon lords Avish to make out what 





252 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 

was the nature of the plan the prince had already 
adopted; but the astutious old envoy would tell them 
nothing, and protested that he knew nothing about it. 
The Saxons plied him hard with w r ine ; but the more 
he drank, the more close the old Dane became. And 
although he would tell nothing himself, he wanted to 
know everything from the English : as, what was the 
strength of their army in the Camp of Refuge, what 
their means of subsistance, what the names of all 
their chiefs—what their correspondence and alliance 
with other Saxon chiefs in other parts of England— 
what the strength of the Normans in various parts of 
England, and which the provinces and the chiefs that 
had entirely submitted to them, with many other 
particulars. It was too confiding, and indeed very 
unwise so to do; but the Saxons, albeit often betrayed 
before now, were not much given to suspicion, and so 
they satisfied him according to the best of their know¬ 
ledge on all these points, and conducted him into 
their camp that he might see with his own eyes how r 
matters stood there, and afforded him all possible 
opportunities of judging for himself as to the means 
they had in hand, and the chances they had of 
successfully terminating a struggle which had already 
lasted for years. The crafty old man thought the 
nakedness of the land much greater than it really was, 
and he afterwards made a report conformably to Knut 
his master and prince. Yet, on the morrow morning, 
when he was about to take his departure from the 
ever hospitable house of Ely, he took the Lord Abbat 
aside, and with bland looks and most gentle voice 
asked him whether he had not in the abbey some 
small matter to send as a present and welcoming gift 
to the royal Dane. Now good Thurstan, who was 
never of those that had expected a vast and unmingled 


THE DANES AND THEIR KING’S SON 253 


good from the coming of the Danes, told him how he 
had broken open the shrine-boxes and stripped the 
shrines, and contaminated the house with dealing with 
usurers, in order to get what had been sent into Dane- 
marck as a present for the king. 

' But,’ said the greedy Dane, ‘ have there been no 
pilgrims to thy shrine since then ? ’ 

‘ Nay,’ said the Lord Abbat, ‘some few there have 
been that have left their little offerings; and, doubt¬ 
less, many more will come ere many days be past, for 
in this blessed month occur the festivals of our saints, 
to wit, that of Saint Sexburga, queen and second 
abbess of this house, and that of her kinswoman and 
successor, Saint Withburga, virgin and abbess. On 
such seasons the donations of the faithful were wont 
to be most liberal; but alas ! few are the Saxons now 
that have anything left to give to Saxon saints ! And 
the matter we have in our coffers at this present is too 
small for a gift to a prince, and is, moreover, much 
needed by this impoverished brotherhood.’ 

To this the cunning, clutching old Dane said that 
a small matter was better than no money at all; that 
it had been the custom in all times to propitiate kings 
and princes with free gifts; that the Lord Abbat had 
better send such gold and silver as he had; and that 
the great Knut might come up to Ely after the festival 
of the two saints, when the shrine-boxes would be 
fuller, and so give the monks of Ely occasion to make 
a more suitable offering. 

At these words Lord Thurstan grew red in the face, 
and stared at the Dane with a half incredulous look; 
and then he said, ‘ Wouldst thou skin us alive ? 
Wouldst take the last silver penny ? Wouldst see the 
shrines of four among the greatest of our saints left in 
dirt and darkness? Dane, can it be that thou art 





254 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


herein doing the bidding of a royal and a Christian 
prince ? Hast thou thy master’s orders to ask that 
which thou art asking ? ’ 

Not a whit discountenanced, the old Dane said that 
men who lived with princes learned to know their 
wishes, and hastened to execute them, without waiting 
for express commands; and that he must repeat that 
he thought the best thing the Abbat of Ely could do 
would be to send Prince Knut all the money he had in 
the house. 

‘ By the rood,’ quoth Thurstan, still more angered, 
‘these Danes be as rapacious as the Normans! By 
Saint Sexburga and Saint Withburga, and by every 
other good saint in the calendarium, I will not consent 
to this ! I will not rob the shrines to get a mere 
beggar’s alms. I cannot do the thing thou askest of 
mine own authority. Such matters must be discussed 
in full chapter, and settled by the votes of the officials 
and cloister-monks of the house. But I will not do 
even so much as to name the matter ! ’ 

* Then,’ said the phlegmatic old Dane, f I will speak 
to the prior, or to the chamberlain, or to some other 
official; and as time presses, my Lord Abbat, thou 
wilt hold me excused if I go and do it at once ! ’ 

And thus saying, he left good Thurstan, and went 
to some of the monks who had been standing near 
enough to overhear every word that had been said 
since the Lord Abbat waxed warm. The envious prior 
was there, and being ever ready to give pain to his 
superior, he proposed that the chapter should be 
summoned on the instant. This being agreed to by 
the major part, the monks withdrew towards the 
chapter-house, the cunning and cool old Dane saying 
to some of them as they went thither, that he much 
feared that if any distaste or disappointment were 


THE DANES AND THEIR KING’S SON 255 

given to Knut, he would take his fleet back to Dane- 
marck and do nothing for the English. Short, there¬ 
fore, was the chapter, and decisive the vote, notwith¬ 
standing the opposition of Thurstan and a few others: 
the shrine-boxes were again emptied, and the truly 
beggar-like amount of silver and gold was put into a 
silken purse to be carried to Lynn. So incensed was 
the bounteous Lord Abbat, who ever had a large heart 
and a scorn for mean and covetous things, that he 
almost vowed not to go back with the old Dane to 
salute his royal master, and be present at the delivery 
of such a gift; but he bethought him that, if he went 
not, the prior must go, and that if the prior went some 
evil might come of it. And so the right noble Abbat 
of Ely went down to Lynn, together with the exiled 
abbats of other houses and sundry lords from the 
Camp of Refuge, much wishing that the Lord of Brunn 
w r ere with him to aid him in the conference. 

As Thurstan landed at Lynn, where he expected to 
see the royal ship and a good part of its attendant 
fleet, he was mortified to find that there were no ships 
there except a few Lynn barks; and, upon going 
into the town, he was yet more disappointed and 
distressed by hearing, from some good Saxons who 
had come in from the hamlets on the coast, that the 
Danish fleet had sailed away to the northward, leaving 
only a few of the smaller barks at the anchorage near 
the Wash. Sharply did he question the old Dane as 
to these movements. The Dane said that it was 
possible the prince had run a little along the north 
coast to pick up news, and that it was quite certain he 
would soon be back. More than this he would not 
say ; except that patience was a virtue. Some of our 
Saxons went almost mad with impatience ; but on the 
next day they received intelligence that the fleet had 





256 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


returned to the anchorage off the chapel of our Ladie, 
and on the day next after that, Knut, with six of his 
largest ships, sailed up the Wash. In his run to the 
northward, if he had not picked up much news, he had 
picked up every English ship or bark that he found 
afloat, and he had plundered every defenceless village 
or township that lay near to that coast. He now cast 
his anchor a long way before he came to Lynn, and 
instead of proceeding to that good town to meet the 
English prelates and nobles, he sent up a messenger 
to summon them on board his own ship. At this the 
Abbat of Ely was much vexed and startled; and he 
said to himself, f Who shall tell me that this is not a 
plot, and that the Danes will not seize us and carry us 
off, or even deliver us up to the Normans ? * but nearly 
all those who had accompanied him from Ely despaired 
of the salvation of England without Danish assistance 
and were eager to go on ship-board and meet the 
prince in the way it pleased him to prescribe, and 
Thurstan grew ashamed of his fears and suspicions. 
Other good men, however, had their suspicions as well 
as the Lord Abbat; and when he embarked in the 
small Danish craft which had been left waiting for the 
envoy at Lynn, many trusty Saxons of the township 
and vicinage would absolutely go with him, and every 
bark or boat that could swim was crowded by the bold 
Lynn mariners, and rowed down to the Wash. 

Knut, the son of the king of Danemarck, standing 
on his proud gilded ship, received the English prelates 
and chiefs with great stateliness, yet not without 
courtesy: and when the silken purse and the scrap¬ 
ings of the shrine-treasures had been presented to 
him (Thurstan blushing the while), he sat down with 
his jarls on one side of a long table, and the English¬ 
men sat down on the opposite side; and then the 


THE DANES AND THEIR KING’S SON 257 

conference began. Unhappily for the English lands¬ 
men a summer storm began to blow at the same 
time, causing the royal ship to roll, and thus making 
them feel the terrible sickness of the sea. At this 
Thurstan almost wished that he had let the prior 
come, instead of coming himself. Knut, the prince, 
spoke first in a very few words, and then his jarls 
further propounded and explained his plan of the 
war. The Danes indeed had nearly all the talking 
to themselves, for not many of them understood what 
the English said, or had patience to hear it inter¬ 
preted ; the qualms and sickness of the English 
almost took away their power of speech, and, more¬ 
over, they very soon discovered that nothing they 
could say had any effect in altering the opinions 
and decisions of the predetermined Danes. It was 
grievous, they said, that the English, who had been 
so rich, should now have so little money to share 
with their friends and deliverers ! They hoped that 
the good prelates and lords would be able to hold out 
in the isle of Ely and throughout the fen country ; 
and as they had held out so long, no doubt they 
could hold out longer. In the meanwhile they, their 
good allies the Danes, would divide their fleet, and 
scour all the coast, and sail up all the great rivers, 
for this would distract the attention of the Normans, 
would alarm them at one and the same time in many 
different and distant places, and infallibly compel 
them to recall their forces from Cam-Bridge and 
Stamford, and to give up all premeditated attacks on 
the fen country. 

‘ Ay,’ said a sea-rover, whose yellow hair had 
grown as white as snow with excess of age, and whose 
sunken eye glistened at the memory of past adventures 
of that sort, f Ay, Saxons! we will sweep all this 


R 






258 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


eastern coast from north to south and from south to 
north, as with a besom ! We will sail or row our barks 
up every river that flows into the sea on this side of 
your island, and that hath keels on its waters or towns 
on its banks. Tweed, Tyne, and Humber, Trent, 
Orwell, Stour, and Thamesis, with all the rivers that 
run between them or into them, shall hear our war- 
cry as of yore ! ’ 

‘ But, alas!’ said one of the Saxon lords, f who will 
suffer in this kind of war but the Saxons ? The Normans 
have very few ships. The ships on the coast and on 
the rivers, and the townships and hamlets, are all 
English still, and cannot be seized or destroyed with¬ 
out ruin to us and the cause which the King of Dane- 
marck hath engaged to support.’ 

The old sea-rover was silent, and the other Danes 
pretended not to understand what the Saxon lord said. 
Abbat Thurstan told the prince that of a surety the 
Saxons in the Camp of Refuge could continue to de¬ 
fend themselves ; but that they could do still better 
if the Danes would spare them some arms and other 
warlike harness, and remain for a while in the Wash 
and in the rivers which empty themselves into it, in 
order to co-operate with the Saxons. Knut, who well 
knew that there was nothing to be picked up in those 
waters, shook his head, and said that his own plan 
was the best, and could not be altered; and that, 
touching the matter of arms and harness, he had none 
to spare, but that he would send over to the Nether- 
landers’ country and buy, if the Saxons would give 
him the money. Here the Abbat and the Saxon lords 
were silent. But when Knut spoke of the great losses 
which the Danes had suffered in the foundering of 
their return fleet the year before, Thurstan reddened 
and said, c The Jarl Osbiorn acted a traitorous part. 


THE DANES AND THEIIl KING’S SON 259 

and hath been treated as a traitor by his brother and 
king. That loss was the direct judgment of Heaven ! 
The fleet was loaded with the spoils of England and 
with the money taken from the Norman for betraying 
the English ! Prince, and jarls all! if ye be come to 
do as Osbiorn did last year, I say look to your fleet, 
and look to the health of your own souls ! ’ 

Hereupon Knut and his great chiefs began to cross 
themselves, and to make many promises and protes¬ 
tations ; and then the prince called for wine and 
pledged the Lord Abbat of Ely and the other English 
lords, lay and ecclesiastical, severally: and when they 
had all drunk wine, he broke up the conference and 
dismissed them in a very unhappy state both of mind 
and of stomach, for the storm had increased, and the 
wine was sour and bad. The royal Dane hauled in 
his anchors and set sail to get out of the Wash and 
from among the dangerous sandbanks. As soon as 
the Saxon lords got ashore at Lynn, and free from 
their exceeding great sickness, Thurstan said that he 
greatly feared a woeful error had been committed 
in inviting the Danes back again, and that a short 
time would show that the Lord of Brunn had been 
quite right in recommending the Saxons to trust to 
their own arms and efforts for their independence; 
but those lords who had voted for the invitation said 
that it was clear the Danes would have come back 
whether they had been invited or not, and that it was 
equally clear that England could not be saved without 
the aid of some foreign nation. These lords also 
thought that a crowned king like Svend Estrithson 
would not break his royal word, and that the prince 
his son would not act like Osbiorn, albeit he might, 
in the ancient manner of the Danes, be too eager to 
scour the seas and rivers and capture whatevei he 







260 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


might find, whether it belonged to friend or foe, to 
Saxon or to Norman. Yet, truth to say, these lords 
were far from feeling assured, and save one or two, 
that were afterwards proved to be false traitors in 
their hearts, they all returned to Ely sadder men than 
they were when they left it to go to meet Knut. 

That which the white-headed sea-rover had said, 
and a great deal more than he uttered, speedily came 
to pass: north and south the English coast was 
plundered; and, ascending the many rivers in their 
lighter vessels and in their boats, the Danes went far 
into the interior of the country, pillaging, burning, 
and destroying, even as their forefathers had done in 
the heathenish times. Up the broad Humber they 
went until they got into the Yorkshire Ouse, and 
they would have gone on to the city of York, but 
that it was strongly garrisoned by Normans, and the 
whole country a desert—a desert which Osbiorn and 
his evil company had made in the preceding year. 
On the river Yare they went as high as the good city 
of Norwich, but they ventured not to attack the 
Normans in that place. The Waveney, too, and the 
Aid they visited, nor left the poor Saxons there so 
much as a fishing-boat. Up the river Deeben as far 
as the wood bridge, where a pleasant town hath since 
risen; and between the pleasant, green-wooded banks 
of the Orwell, they sailed many a league. After 
ravaging the banks of the Stour, Knut collected all 
his ships together and then spread his sails on the 
smooth Medway and the broad Thamesis, going up 
the Thamesis almost to London; and then mooring 
his ships, and making a great show as though he 
intended to land an army and lay siege to the Tower 
of London, which the Normans were then busily 
enlarging and strengthening. 




THE DANES AND THEIR KING’S SON 261 

Not all the doings of the Danes, and the robberies 
and cruelties they committed upon poor defenceless 
Saxons, could be known in the Camp of Refuge; yet 
enough was known by the report of the country 
people to grieve every English heart in the camp, and 
to confirm the worst suspicions which Abbat Thurstan 
had conceived. On the other hand, it was made 
apparent that the Normans were greatly distracted by 
this new invasion, and that, while their vicomtes and 
knights and men-at-arms were marching in almost 
every other direction, none of them came near to the 
last asylum of Saxon liberty. In truth, the posts 
which had previously been drawn round the fen 
country were so far weakened that the Lord Here- 
ward, who had again taken a direct and entire com¬ 
mand in the Camp of Refuge, made several good 
sallies from the fens and brought back not a few 
Norman prisoners, together with good store of pro¬ 
vision. 

Matters were in this good train in the camp when 
intelligence was brought that Knut, with the whole 
of his mighty fleet, had returned to the Wash. The 
Danish faction, or all those Saxon lords who counted 
more upon Danish assistance than upon their own 
valour and the valour of their countrymen, were 
greatly rejoiced at these tidings, and would not allow 
any man to doubt that Knut, having made good 
seizings and spoils, w r as now come to co-operate with 
the English warriors and their great captain the 
Lord of Brunn; and these unwise lords, being partly 
guided or misguided by traitors, outvoted the Lord 
Abbat, and sent down a deputation to Lynn to salute 
and welcome the royal Dane, and to invite him and 
escort him to Ely. And this time Knut was nothing 
loth to come : and he came up the river with a part 





262 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


of his fleet of ships and with many of his jarls and 
most famed warriors. Crowned kings had visited 
the great house of Ely before now, and kings of the 
Danish as well as of the Saxon line, but to none of 
them had there been given a more splendid feast 
than was now given to Knut, w r lio as yet was but a 
jarl and a king’s son. The Saxon dames of high 
name and beauty came in from the Camp of Refuge, 
or from houses in the township of Ely, or in circum¬ 
jacent hamlets, to welcome the princely stranger and 
adorn the festival; and fairest among these fair was 
Alftrude, the young wife of the Lord of Brunn. The 
Lord Hereward himself was there, but much less 
cheerful and festive than was his wont; for on his 
last sally from the fens he had heard more than he 
knew before of the evil doings of the Dane; and, 
moreover, he had ever suspected their good faith. 

When the feasting was over, the cunning old Dane 
that had come up to Ely before as envoy from the 
prince, began to relate what great mischief Knut had 
done to Duke William, and what great service he 
had rendered to the House of Ely and the Camp of 
Refuge, and the whole fen country, by the diversion 
he had made with his ships ; and before any of the 
Saxon lords could reply or make any observation 
upon these his words, the astute Dane asked whether 
the festivals of Saint Sexburga and Saint Withburga 
had been well attended by pilgrims, and whether the 
shrine-boxes had had a good replenishing ? The 
chamberlain, who ought not to have spoken before 
his superior the Lord Abbat, said that the festivals 
had been thronged, and that considering the trouble¬ 
some times, the donations of the pilgrims had been 
liberal. 

' That is well/ said the old fox, f for our ships 


THE DANES AND THEIR KING’S SON 263 

have had much wear and tear, and stand in need of 
repairs; and the prince wants some gold and silver 
to pay his seamen and his fighting men, who are 
growing weary and dissatisfied for want of pay.’ 

Here the Lord Abbat looked rather grim, and said, 
f Of a truth I thought that thy people had made 
great booty ! By Saint Etlieldreda, the founder of 
this house—the house was never so poor as it now is, 
or had such urgent need of money as it now hath ! 
By my soul, it is but a small matter that is in our 
shrine-boxes, and all of it, and more than all is due 
unto the Jews.’ 

‘It is sinful and heathenish to pay unto Jews the 
gold and silver which Christian pilgrims have deposited 
on the shrines of their saints,’ said one of the Danish 
jarls. 

And hereat the Lord Abbat Thurstan blushed and 
held down his head, much grieving that, though 
against his vote and will, the house had been driven 
to traffic with Israelites and money-changers; yet 
still remembering that this evil thing had been begun 
in order to get money to send to the insatiate Danes. 
All this while Prince Knut kept his state, and said 
not a word. But the cunning old man went on to 
say, that hitherto the profits of the expedition had 
not been half enough to pay King Svend Estrithson 
the price of half the ships he had lost last year; and 
that, although the amount of gold and silver in the 
shrine-boxes might be but small, there was a rumour 
that there were good treasures in the house. 

Here it was that the Lord of Brunn grew red, for 
he was the first to understand that the greedy Dane 
meant to speak of the chalices and pateras, the crown 
of gold, the gold and silver tables, and the other 
things of great price that he had brought away with 




264 THE CAMP OF REFUGE 

him from Peterborough in order that they might be 
saved from Torauld of Fescamp. Again speaking, 
when he ought not to have spoken—before Abbat 
Thurstan could speak or collect his thoughts—the 
chamberlain said, ( Verily, O Dane ! I have under 
my charge some strong boxes which the Lord of 
Brunn sent hither from Peterborough; and, albeit, I 
know not with precision what these strong boxes 
contain, . . 

Here Abbat Thurstan stopped the talkative 
chamberlain and said, ‘ Let the strong boxes contain 
what they will, the contents are none of ours ! They 
be here as a sacred deposit, to be returned to the 
good monks of Peterborough when they can get back 
to their house and their church, and live without 
dread of Saxon traitors and Norman plunderers ! ’ 

But many of the Danes, believing the Peterborough 
treasure to be far greater than it was, said that it 
would be no such sin to employ it for secular purposes, 
or to give it for the support of friends and allies 
who had quitted their homes and their countries, 
and had crossed the stormy ocean to aid the English ; 
for that, when the Danes and the English between 
them should have driven the Normans out of the land, 
there would be no lack of gold and silver wherewith 
to replace the sacred vessels, and to give back to 
Peterborough Abbey far more than had been taken 
from it. Some of them declared, and severally pro¬ 
mised and swore by their own saints, that if Knut, 
their leader, and the son of their king, was but 
gratified in this particular, he would land all his best 
warriors and join Here ward the Saxon, and so go 
in search of Duke William and bring the Normans to 
battle : and if Knut did not swear by his saints, or say 
much by word of mouth, he nodded his head and 


THE DANES AND THEIR KING’S SON 265 

seemed to consent—the christened infidel, and un¬ 
prince-like prince that he was. 

It may be judged whether Lord Hereward was not 
eager for such an increase of strength as might enable 
him to carry the war into the heart of England or under 
the walls of the city of London ! It may be judged 
whether he did not burn for the opportunity of fight¬ 
ing a great and decisive battle : but Hereward had a 
reverence for the property of the Church, and a great 
misgiving of the Danes; and he whispered to his best 
friend, the Lord Abbat, ( If we put this guilt upon 
our souls, and give these insatiate Danes all that they 
ask, they will do not for us that which they promise, 
but will sail away in their ships with the plunder 
they have made as soon as the storms of winter 
approach.’ 

This too was the doubt if not the entire belief of 
Thurstan. But the chamberlain and the prior called 
out aloud for a chapter; and those who were of a 
party -with the prior and chamberlain laboured might 
and main to convince the whole brotherhood that the 
Danes ought to be gratified, and that they could be 
gratified without sin. Nay, some of them whispered 
to the more timid part of the community, that if the 
Peterborough treasure, as well the shrine-money, 
were not quietly given to Knut, he would take it by 
force, as the house and the avenues to it were filled 
with his armed men, and as his barks were lying close 
under the abbey walls. The call for a chapter now 
became so loud and general that the Lord Abbat could 
not resist it; and so, leaving his guests in the hall, 
Thurstan went to the chapter-house, and being 
followed by all who were competent to vote, the doors 
were closed, and the brotherhood deliberated. That 
deliberation was long, and would have been longer 




266 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


but for the impatience of the Danes, who vociferated 
in the hall, and even went the length of running to 
the door of the chapter-house and striking upon it, 
with loud and most unmannerly shoutings. At last 
it was resolved by the majority, and sorely against 
the will of the Lord Abbat, that the Danes should 
have the shrine-money, with other Ely treasure, and 
all the Peterborough treasure, with the exception of 
the relics, for which it was thought they would care 
but little, inasmuch as they were not relics of Danish 
saints. 

Thurstan was so grieved at this resolution that he 
would not report it in the hall; but the prior gladly 
charged himself with the office, and then he and the 
chamberlain and the sacrist conveyed the cunning old 
Dane, and the prince, his master, into the treasury of 
the house, and there counted and delivered over to 
them all the gold and silver, and all the gilded crosses 
and silver vessels, and all the silks and hangings, with 
everything else which had been brought from Peter¬ 
borough, except the relics. But even these last were 
taken out of the reliquaries which held them, as the 
said reliquaries were made of gold and of silver, or of 
crystal and amber curiously wrought, and so Knut 
would carry them away with him. 

Let Peterborough weep for its own, and Ely weep 
for that which was its own ! King Canute, who had so 
loved to keep the festival of the Purification in great 
solemnity at Ely Abbey, had once brought his wife 
unto the abbey, and Emma, the queen, had given 
many rich gifts to the church. A piece of purple 
cloth, wrought with gold, and set with jewels, such as 
there was none like it in the kingdom, she offered to 
St. Etheldreda; and to the other saints there, she 
offered to each of them a covering of silk, embroidered 


THE DANES AND THEIR KING’S SON 267 

and set with jewels, but of less value than the former. 
Also did Emma, the queen of King Canute, give, as 
a covering for the high altar, a large pall of a green 
colour, adorned with plates of gold, to be used on the 
grand festivals; and to be placed over this she gave 
a great piece of fine linen of a deep red colour; and 
this linen covered the whole of the altar, and reached 
from the corners quite down to the ground, and it had 
a gold fringe quite down to the ground, and it had 
a rich and glorious show. Prince Knut knew of these 
precious gifts of Queen Emma, for the fame of them 
had gone into foreign lands, and therefore his cunning 
old man asked for them, and got them, to the great 
displeasure of the saints. 

As the Danes were carrying all this treasure down 
to their ships, the cunning old man renewed his 
assurances that the prince, being thus gratified, would 
soon do great things for the Saxon cause. Hereward 
asked the old man in his plain direct way ivhen Knut 
would land his warriors. The cunning man replied, 
that it was not for him to fix the day and hour, but 
that his lordship would soon hear news of the fleet. 
The Lord of Brunn then turned aside and said to the 
Lord Abbat: ' By Saint Ovin and his cross, I believe 
the first news will be that the fleet has started back 
to Danemarck ! Let us yet stop this treasure and send 
them away empty-handed, at least from Ely ! I care 
nought for their serried ranks, and ponderous battle- 
axes. We have a good force, my Lord Abbat, in the 
township, and, were that not more than enough, a few 
blasts of the Saxon horn would bring us warriors from 
the Camp ! ’ 

'My son/ said Thurstan, ‘ I fear their battle-axes 
no more than thou dost; but I cannot dare act in 
violation of the decisions of the chapter. Alas ! there 




268 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


are jealousies and animosities enough already. As sure 
as the sun shines in the heavens, that dark-browed, 
envious prior is in a plot against me ! Could he find 
the opportunity, he would deprive me of my authority 
by a vote of the house in chapter. I dare not resist 
the will of the majority : the gold and the treasure 
must even go, since traitors and fools, but more fools 
than traitors, have so willed it.’ 

‘ Then,’ quoth the Lord of Brunn, ‘ let us only 
hope and pray that this Knut may have more good 
faith and honour than we give him credit for.’ 

f I will speak to him again, ere he depart/ said the 
Abbat. 

And Thurstan spoke earnestly to Knut, and Knut 
nodded his head, and uttered many Ahs ! and Ohs ! 
but said nothing further. It was thought by some 
that this taciturnity did not proceed from choice but 
from necessity, as the son of the Danish King had 
swallowed a prodigious quantity of wine, and could 
hardly stand on his legs without support. And in the 
drinking of wine and strong drinks, if other nations 
marvelled at the Saxons, the Saxons themselves 
marvelled at the Danes. So great was the quantity 
consumed on this day that the wine-cellars at Ely, 
which had not been replenished since Lord Hereward’s 
first return from foreign parts, were left almost dry. 
And thus, having drunk nearly all the wine and taken 
off all the treasure of the house, the Danes and their 
prince got back to their ships. Knut stood up on the 
deck of the royal galley, just under the royal standard 
of Danemarck, and made some gestures, as though he 
would make a speech. Such of the monks of Ely, 
and such of the Saxon lay lords as had given him their 
attendance to the water-side, stood a-tip-toe on the 
river-bank, and strained their eyes to see, and opened 


THE DANES AND THEIR KING’S SON 269 

wide their ears to hear; but nothing came from Knut 
but an Ah ! and an Oh! and a loud hiccup; and the 
galley being unmoored and the rowers on their banks, 
Knut waved his hand, and the vessel glided down the 
river towards Lynn. 

That very night the town of Lynn, which had 
received the Danish fleet in all friendship and with 
much hospitality, w 7 as plundered and set fire to; and 
before the next night the whole fleet had quitted the 
Wash and the English coast, and was in full sail for 
Danemarck, loaded with the plunder of England and 
with the money which had been again paid by the 
Normans as the price of Danish treachery. 

Even while he was lying in the river Thamesis with 
his great fleet, and was seeming to threaten the Tower 
of London, Knut received on board envoys and rich 
presents from Duke William, and was easily made to 
sign a treaty of amity and alliance with the Normans, 
even as his uncle Osbiorn had done the year before. 
And did the traitorous Danes enjoy the spoil they had 
gotten ? Not so. When they got into the middle of 
the sea there arose a violent storm and dispersed the 
ships wherein were lodged the spoils made at Ely and 
at other places, and some of these ships went to 
Norway, some to Ireland, and some to the bottom of 
the sea; and all of the spoils of Ely and Peterborough 
that reached Danemarck consisted of a table and a 
few reliquaries and crucifixes; and these things, being 
deposited in the church of a town belonging to King 
Svend, were consumed by fire; for the careless and 
drunken shipmen set fire to the town and church by 
night, and so caused the loss of much more treasure 
than that which the shipmen had brought with them 
from England. The amount of the total treasure paid 
to Knut by Duke William was never known with any 




270 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


certainty in England, out of the very vitals of which it 
was torn; but it is known in another place, where all 
these acts of treachery are recorded, and heavily will 
it press upon the soul of Knut, and upon the selfish 
soul of his father, Svend Estrithson, who ratified the 
foul bargain he had made. And, even in this world, 
hath not the avenging hand of Heaven smitten them 
twain ? Hath not the excommunication of the Holy 
Church fallen twice upon Svend ? Hath not unnatural 
warfare raged long between the sons of Svend, and 
hath not Knut been murdered in his prime—ay, 
murdered in a church to which he fled for sanctuary ? 
He had offended the saints by his broken faith, and 
by plundering the shrines in England; and therefore 
no shrine or altar could save him from the treachery 
and malice of his own subjects. 

All the evils done to England by Knut and his 
Danes are not yet told, but they will plainly appear 
hereafter. 


CHAPTER XIX 


THE NORMAN WITCH 

So the Danes and their ships were gone with all that 
they could carry with them ; and the Saxons of Ely 
and in the Camp of Refuge, after being robbed as well 
as betrayed, were left to their own devices. Much 
was Duke William heartened by the departure of Knut, 
and the treaty he had made with him; and, seeing no 
enemy in any other part of England, he gave his whole 
mind to the war in the fen country. More knights 
and adventurers had come over from France and from 
sundry other countries to aid the Conqueror in his 
enterprises, and to seek provision and fortune in un¬ 
happy England. Choosing some of the best of these 
ne^v comers, and joining them to troops that had been 
tried in the hard warfare of the fen country, the son 
of Robert the Devil by the harlot of Falaise sent 
strong garrisons to Grantham and Stamford, and 
Peterborough, and Cam-Bridge; and, carrying with 
him his chancellor and nearly the whole of his court, 
he quitted London and went himself to Cam-Bridge 
to direct the w r ar in person. As he and his mighty 
great host were marching through the country towards 
the river Cam, and as the poor Saxon people counted 
the number of the lances, they said, c Miserere, Domine! 
The conquest of our country is complete, and not even 
Hereward the Brave will be able longer to defend the 
Camp of Refuge ! ’ 


271 




272 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


When Duke William arrived in the camp at Cam- 
Bridge, and examined the fen country which lay 
before him, he severely censured the folly and rash¬ 
ness of Eustache of Ambleville; and also chiding the 
impatient and self-confident knights that were now 
with him and eager to fall on, he swore his terrible 
oath, by the splendour of God’s face, that he would 
not allow of any fighting until the ancient causeway 
should be repaired and fortified with towers, and 
another and a broader causeway carried across the 
marshes into the very heart of the fens, and opposite 
to the point whereon the Saxons had constructed the 
main defence of their Camp of Refuge. Timber and 
stones and baked bricks were brought from all parts 
of the country, and every Saxon serf that could be 
caught was impressed, and was forced to labour almost 
unto death upon works intended for the destruction of 
his countrymen. Skilful artisans and men experienced 
in the making of roads and the building of bridges 
were brought to Cam-Bridge from the city of London, 
from the city of Caen in Normandie, and from other 
places beyond the seas; and the task which William 
had in hand was made the easier by the long-con¬ 
tinued, unwonted dryness of the season. But the 
Lord of Brunn, although he prayed heartily for rain, 
did in nowise lose heart; and in proportion as his 
difficulties increased, his wit and invention increased 
also. The working parties on the roads were con¬ 
stantly covered and protected by great bodies of troops 
put under the command of vigilant officers; but this 
did not prevent Hereward from stealing through the 
tall concealing rushes of the fens, and the forests of 
willows and alders, and falling upon the workmen and 
destroying their works. On several occasions he cut 
the Norman guard to pieces before they could form in 


THE NORMAN WITCH 


273 


order of battle; and several times he destroyed in a 
single night the labour of many days, levelling the 
Norman towers with the ground, breaking up their 
bridges, and carrying off their timber and their tools 
and other good spoil. It always happened that when 
his enemies were surest he would not come, he came ; 
and when they expected him at one given point, he 
was sure to make an attack upon another and dis¬ 
tant point. At times his ambuscades, surprises, and 
onslaughts were so numerous and rapid that he 
seemed to have the faculty of being in many places 
at one and the same time. Many a Norman knight 
was surprised at his post, or even carried off from 
the midst of a camp, and dragged through the rushes 
and forests at the dead of night, an astonished and 
helpless captive. Many a time a great body of Nor¬ 
man troops would take to flight and leave all their 
baggage behind them, upon merely hearing the shout 
of ‘ Hereward for England !' or those other shouts, 
‘The Lord of Brunn is coming! Fly, ye Norman 
thieves ! Out! out!! ’ Such were Lord Hereward’s 
successes, and such the Norman awe of his unfore¬ 
seen stratagems and unaccountable surprises, that 
the Normans entirely believed Hereward to be in 
league with the devil, and to be aided by witches 
and necromancers and fiends worse than the blubber 
devils of Crowland. Now it was true that, for many 
of his stratagems and devices, and for many of the 
sleights and tricks with which he appalled the Nor¬ 
mans, Hereward was indebted to the science and 
travail of that thin, dark man of Salerno, and Nor- 
man-hater, Girolamo; and, by means of deserters 
from the camp, and by means of ransomed Normans 
that had been allowed to quit the camp, the Saler¬ 
nitan, if he had not been made well known to the 

s 







274 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


Normans, had been much talked about, and had 
become the object of so much dread that no knight 
or man-at-arms ever named his name without cross¬ 
ing himself. Nor were the Normans long before they 
agreed, one and all, that the dark and silent Salerni¬ 
tan was Herew r ard’s chief magician, the devil-dealing 
necromancer to whom he stood indebted for all his 
successes. Loudly did they raise their voices against 
this supposed wickedness; and yet, when they found 
that their misfortunes and losses went on increasing, 
they came to the resolution to meet what w r as no 
witchcraft at all with real witchcraft, and they told 
Duke William in Cam-Bridge Castle that he must 
send over into Normandie for the most famed witch 
of that land, w r here there was no lack either of 
witches or of w r arlocks; and the son of Robert the 
Devil, whose father, as his name imports, had been 
liege man to Lucifer, sent over to Normandie ac¬ 
cordingly to seek for the most dreaded of Norman 
witches. Now, whether it was this wickedness that 
did it, or whether it was that the moist air of the 
fens and the autumnal season did not suit Duke 
William, certain at least it is that he fell sick of a 
fever and ague, and therefore took a hurried depar¬ 
ture from Cam-Bridge and travelled towards London, 
having first sent to call from Stamford town Ivo 
Taille-Bois to take the command of the great army. 
Now, when Ivo came to Cam-Bridge, and when Duke 
William was away in London, matters went far worse 
with the Normans than before, for the Vicomte was 
not a great captain, as the Duke assuredly was. 
Moreover many of the troops took the ague, and 
others were so unmanned by their fears that they 
could never be made to stand their ground; and, in 
fine, all vowed that they would not venture amonc- 


THE NORMAN WITCH 


275 


the woods and bulrushes, nor attempt any feat of 
arms whatever until the great witch should arrive 
from Normandie to countervail the black arts of the 
Salernitan and the other wizards and witches they 
falsely believed to be employed by the pious Lord of 
Brunn. 

At last a terrible Norman witch arrived at Cam- 
Bridge, and she was received in the entrenched camp 
and in the castle with transports of exceeding great 
joy. Loathsome and wicked at the same time were it 
to describe the person and features, the attire and 
demeanour, the spells and incantations of this fright¬ 
ful and detestable portentum. Her years far exceeded 
the ordinary length of human life, and they had all 
been spent in sin and in the practice of infernal arts : 
in sin and actual devilry had she been conceived and 
born, for her mortal father was none other than that 
arch-heresiarch and enemy to the saints, Leutarde of 
Vertus, in the bishopric of Chalons, who went about 
with a sledge-hammer breaking the images of God’s 
saints, and preaching that God’s prophets had not 
always prophesied the truth, and that God-living 
servants and ministers of the altar had no right to 
their tithes! Since the day when her sire, pursued 
by his bishop, cast himself head foremost into a deep 
well and was drowned (for the devils, in their compact 
with him, had only agreed that he should never be 
burned), this foul strega, his only daughter, had 
wandered over the face of the wide earth doing 
mischief, and dwelling most in those forsaken, accursed 
parts of the earth where witchcraft doth most flourish. 
It was said that she had been as far north as that 
dread isle which is covered with snow, and which yet 
is for ever vomiting smoke and flames; even to that 
northern isle which pious men believe to be one of 




THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


276 

the entrances into hell, and which has been notori¬ 
ously inhabited at all times by devils and devil- 
worshippers ; that she had lived among the Laps, who 
call up demons by beat of drum; and that she had 
dwelt in the Orcades, where the devil’s dam and her 
handmaidens use to raise great storms, and to sell 
wind foul or fair. Of a surety was there no witch 
of all that congregated round the witcli-tree of 
Beneventum more known than this ! It was known, 
too, how she came by that broken leg which made her 
limp in her gait. Once in flying through the air to 
the hellish sabbat at Beneventum she came too near 
to the cross of Saint Peter’s Church at Rome, and so 
fell to the earth. 

Ivo Taille-Bois, profane man as he was, would have 
turned with horror from the witch, but in his sinful 
ignorance he believed that the devil’s arts might be 
employed against the devil, and he saw that all the 
soldiery, nay, and all the chivalry put under his com¬ 
mand, believed that without witchcraft they could 
never cope with the Lord of Brunn, nor make any 
way in the fen country. As for the witch herself, 
she promised the men immediate and most marvellous 
victories. Therefore it was agreed that she should go 
forth with the troops and the working parties and 
penetrate into the fens, and that she should take her 
station on a high wooden tower, and thence give her 
directions as well to the working-men as to the fight¬ 
ing men. Now Lord Here ward and Girolamo of 
Salerno, being advised of the arrival of the hag and of 
the plans of the Normans, took counsel together, and 
trusted, with the aid of the saints, to break the spell 
and sortilege, and consume the witch while in the very 
act of her witchcraft. Calling in his merry men from 
all their outposts, and posting them behind a river, 


THE NORMAN WITCH 


277 

Lord Here ward allowed the Normans to advance a 
good way into the fens, and he offered them no 
molestation while they were building a lofty wooden 
tower in the midst of an open plain. But when the 
tower was finished and the witch was at her incanta¬ 
tions, and when the Norman band was gathered round 
the foot of the tower in that open plain. Here ward 
and Girolamo, aided only by Elfric and a few other 
alert Saxons, came round unseen to the edge of the 
plain and set fire to the dense reeds and rushes that 
grew upon it. It is the custom of the fenners to burn 
their reeds and stubble in the month of November of 
every year in order to fertilise the soil with the ashes 
thereof; and at this season one sees all this moorish 
country in a flame, to his great wonder and surprise, 
if he be a stranger in these parts. It was now the 
burning-time, and owing to the exceeding dryness of 
the summer and of the autumn likewise, the reeds and 
junci in this plain were all as dry as matches: add to 
this that the Salernitan had brought with him and had 
sprinkled over the plain some of his marvellous com¬ 
pounds which made a raging and inextinguishable 
fire, and that the wind was blowing keenly from the 
north-east right across the plain and towards the tall 
wooden tower; and then it may be, to some degree, 
imagined how rapidly and awfully the flames, once 
lit, rolled over that broad open field, crackling, and 
hissing, and then roaring in the wind, while columns 
of thick, pungent, suffocating smoke rolled after them, 
darkening the sun and sky and making visible the 
horrible red glare. At the first glimpse of the mighty 
blaze the hag stopped her incantation and let the 
hell-broth she was brewing drop from her skinny 
hands with a hideous yell; and the men-at-arms and 
the labourers that were gathered at the foot of the 




278 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


tower cast a look of dread and horror to windward and 
screamed like the witch, and then took to their heels 
and ran across the plain in the desperate hope of 
keeping before the winds and the flames, and paying 
no heed to the witch, who had no means of descending 
from her tower. ‘ Ha! ha ! thou hag! where is thy 
witch-tree of Beneventum now, which no mortal axe 
can cut down or lop, and no earthly fire consume ? 
Ha ! witch! where be the broad double channels and 
the rapid and cool streams of the river Calor ? If 
they flowed by thee close as they used to do when 
thou wast perched on that witch-tree, high as is thy 
tower, wouldst not leap headlong into the deep water? 
Ha ! accursed daughter of Leutarde Iconoclastes, 
wouldst call upon the saints whose blessed effigies 
were broken by thy father’s sledge-hammer ! What! 
dost scream and raise thy skinny hands to Heaven ? 
’Tis vain, ’tis vain ! the saints in Heaven will not hear 
thee, so down with thy hands towards earth and the 
fiery plain, and invoke the fiends to whom thou hast 
sold thy soul. So! so ! the fire catcheth and thy 
tower of wood crackles in the flames, and the flames 
mount upward and embrace thee round about and 
lick thee with their blistering tongues! Ha! shriek 
and writhe ! these flames give only a mild foretaste of 
thine eternal doom. These flames be but fed with 
dry rushes and fen-grass, and the wood of the oak 
and pine; but the unquenchable flames of the nether¬ 
most pit are fed with brimstone and naphtha. See ! 
the tower falls and she is consumed, flesh and bones, 
in the hissing fire !—and so perish all witches ! ’ 

Thus spake Girolamo of Salerno, like the true 
believer that he was, as the Norman witch was burn¬ 
ing. But the hag did not perish alone; the crackling 
fire, carried onward by the strong wind, overtaking 


THE NORMAN WITCH 


279 

and consuming nearly all the Normans that had 
advanced with her into the plains to set up her 
accursed tower. Ivo Taille-Bois, with the rest of 
the Norman host, had stopped at the ford where the 
witch had crossed before she came into the plain ; but 
when he saw the fire kindled and roll across the fen 
almost as rapidly as the waters of a mighty cataract, 
and saw the smoke arise and shut out the sight of the 
blessed sun, Ivo turned and fled, and every man with 
him fled in w r ild dismay, nor stopped until they came 
to the castle by Cam-Bridge. And the ford where 
the hag crossed over into the plain is called unto this 
day Witchford. 

And when the fire which Girolamo had lit had 
burned itself out, and the smoke had cleared away, 
the fierce wind fell and there came on a terrible storm 
of thunder and lightning ; and when this was over the 
long delayed rains began to fall in torrents, filling the 
rivers and brooks and marshpools, and making the 
whole country once more impassable; and these rains, 
intermitting only for brief hours, continued to fall for 
seven days and seven nights; and that part of the 
causeway which had been built by Duke William’s 
orders was undermined and washed aw r ay, so that no 
trace remained of it. And then, while the Normans 
remained penned up in the castle and in the in¬ 
trenched camp, the Lord of Brunn and his Saxons 
launched their light boats in the rivers and meres, 
and destroyed all the works which had been built to 
defend the whole road. Thus in the next year the 
Conqueror had everything to begin anew. 

In the meanwhile Ivo Taille-Bois gave up the com¬ 
mand in despair, and went away to Stamford, where 
he had left his wife, the Ladie Lucia. During the winter 
this Vicomte of Spalding made an essay to recover 







280 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


possession of the Ladie Lucia’s manor-house and 
estates at Spalding; but as the Saxons had still a 
little fleet of barks and the entire command of the 
Welland river, Ivo failed entirely, and was not even 
able to do so much as disturb the tranquillity of the 
good Saxon monks of Crowland. And while the 
Norman vicomte was thus unsuccessful, other and 
great successes attended the Saxon lord. With one 
numerous band collected near his house at Brunn, the 
Lord Hereward found his way across the country as 
far as Newark, where he defeated a great body of 
Normans, and found good spoil; and after this, with 
another band, drawn mostly from the impenetrable 
bogs of Hollandia, he ascended the Witham as far as 
Boston and there surprised and captured three Norman 
knights, and some three-score Norman men-at-arms. 
And it so chanced that among these three knights 
was that unlucky wooer Geoffroy, the brother of Ivo, 
who had found in some upland part of England a 
. Saxon wife and heiress, but one neither so handsome 
nor so rich as the Ladie Alftrude, for it was a widow 
quite old enough to be Sir Geoffroy’s mother, and her 
whole estate was not much larger than one of the 
Ladie Alftrude’s farms. Having no money to pay for 
his ransom, and his brother having none to give or 
lend him, Geoffroy was sent into the fens and kept 
there as a close prisoner. And before the Lord of 
Brunn had done, he made other members of that 
family know what it was to live among the bulrushes. 
But now, having done all these things, and performed 
many other exploits, Hereward, at the approach of 
spring, brought his fair young spouse from Ey to his 
house at Brunn, and a very few days after her arrival 
the ladie gave birth to an heir to the united honours 
of Brunn and Ey. And hereupon followed high 


THE NORMAN WITCH 


281 


rejoicings, and a christening, and such an hospitable 
feast as only true Saxon lords knew how to give. The 
good-hearted Lord Abbat of Crowland baptized the 
child, and sundry of his monks, and the good prior of 
Spalding among them, were bidden to the feast. 

4 Elfric, my trusty sword-bearer/ said the Lord 
of Brunn when the feast was over, 4 Elfric, I say, 
methinks I have given proof, that a man may love 
and fight, and be a husband and a soldier, at one 
and the same time, and that if we are to put off thy 
espousal day with maid Mildred until this war be 
over, thou wilt run a chance of never being married 
at all! ’ 

4 Good, my lord/ said Elfric, 4 this is what I 
have been thinking for more than these nine months 
past.’ 

4 Then beshrew me,’ said the Lord of Brunn, 4 thou 
and Mildred shall be made one before the world be a 
moon older! ’ 

The Lord of Brunn meant what he said; but 
Heaven ordered it otherwise. 


CHAPTER XX 

THE NORMAN DUKE TRIES AGAIN. 

William of Normandie sate in his gorgeous hall in 
the royal citadel of Winchester: the proud crown of 
England was on his head, and the jewelled sceptre in 
his hand, and knights, lords, and prelates stood in his 
presence to do his every bidding, and to tell him that 
he was the greatest of conquerors and sovereign 
princes; yet a cloud was on his broad brow, and his 
face was sad and thoughtful. 

‘ I am no king of England,’ said he, ‘ so long as 
this Hereward the Saxon holds out against me or 
lives! This sceptre is a child’s plaything unless I 
can drive the Saxons out of the Camp of Refuge! ’ 

e The robbers and outlaws shall be driven out,’ said 
Hugo of Grantmesnil. 

* Hugo,’ said the duke, ‘it is five years since thou 
first toldest me that, and the camp seems stronger 
now than ever it was.’ 

* If it were not for the drowning waters, and the 
sinking bogs, and all the abominations of those fens 
and forests, which are fit only for Saxon hogs to 
wallow in, the deed were easy to do,’ said Peter of 
Blainville. 

‘Be it easy or be it hard/ quoth Duke William, 
‘ the deed must be done, or we must all prepare to go 

back into Normandie, and give up all that we have 

282 



THE NORMAN DUKE TRIES AGAIN 283 


gotten ! It bots us little to have bought off the greedy 
Dane; for Philip of France, whom some do call my 
suzerain lord, is one that will prefer conquest to 
money; and Philip is not only threatening my 
dominions in Normandie, but is also leaguing with 
mine enemies in this island; he is corresponding 
with the king of the Scots, and with Edgar Etheling 
the Saxon, and guest and brother-in-law to the Scottish 
king; and if this rebellion in the fen country be not 
soon suppressed, we may soon count upon seeing 
a French army upon the coast, and a Scottish army 
marching through the north ; and then the wild men 
will rush from the mountains of Wales and invade us 
in the west, as they have done aforetime; and there¬ 
upon will ensue a universal rising of the Saxon people, 
who are nowhere half subdued. By the splendour! 
while these things last I am no king! ’ 

One of the Norman prelates lifted up his voice and 
asked, whether the offer of a free pardon, and the 
promise of a large sum of money, would not make 
Here ward the Saxon abandon the Saxon cause, and 
desert from the Camp of Refuge ? 

c By Notre Dame of Bayeux! ’ said Bishop Odo, 
the warlike and always fighting brother of Duke 
William, 'by Notre Dame, and by my own sword 
and soul, this young man Here ward is not like other 
men! He hath been offered a free pardon, with 
possession of his lands, whether his by marriage or 
inheritance, and he hath been promised as much 
gold and silver as Tvould pay for a king’s ransom ; 
and yet he hath rejected all this with scorn, and hath 
vowed, by his uncouth Saxon saints, that so long as 
a hundred men can be kept together in the fen 
country, he will never submit, or cease his warfare 
against the Normans ! ’ 


284 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


‘ But that devil from beyond the Alps/ said the 
Norman prelate who had spoken before, ‘that rebel 
to the house of Guiscard, that necromancer, Girolamo 
of Salerno, is he not to be bought ? ’ 

‘It hath been tried/ said Bishop Odo, ‘but to no 
effect. That Italian devil is more athirst for Norman 
blood than is the Saxon devil. Before he quitted his 
home and fled beyond seas to seek out new enemies 
to our race, he gained a name which still makes the 
bravest of our Normans in Italie say a Libera nos 
when they utter it! We will burn him alive when 
we catch him, but until that hour comes there is 
nothing to hope and much to fear from him, for he 
hath given up his life and soul to vengeance, and he 
hath more skill in the art of war, and is more versed 
in the diabolical arts of magic, than any other man 
upon earth/ 

‘ But what of the Saxon Abbat of Ely ? ’ said the 
prelate who had before spoken about the efficacy of 
bribes, ‘ what of this Thurstan ? ’ 

‘ There is not a stubborner Saxon out of hell/ 
replied Odo, Bishop of Bayeux; ‘ he hath been tried 
long since. Thou mightest as well attempt to bribe 
the raging sea ! Thou mightest grill him on a grid¬ 
iron like Saint Lawrence, or tear him into small 
pieces with iron pinchers like Saint Agatha, and he 
would only curse us and our conquest, and pray for 
the usurper Harold, whom the fools firmly believe to 
be alive! * 

‘ But/ said the other prelate, ‘ among the other 
clownish monks of Ely, may there not be found 

y 

a- 

‘ Peace! * said Duke William, ‘ that hath been 
thought of already, and perhaps something may come 
of it—that is, if ye be but silent and discreet. Ye 



THE NORMAN DUKE TRIES AGAIN 285 

are all too loud-tongued, and overmuch given to talk¬ 
ing; and these walls, though raised by Norman hands, 
may yet have Saxon ears! Retire we to the inner¬ 
most council chamber/ 

And William rose and withdrew to the innermost 
room, and those who had the right followed, and the 
chamberlains closed the door and kept guard on the 
outside, and the heavy door-curtains were drawn 
within so that none might approach the door, and 
not even the chamberlains hear what passed inside. 
That secret council lasted till a late hour of the 
evening. The words which were said be not known, 
but the things determined upon were made known 
but too soon. It was the eve of Saint Mark the 
Evangelist, and, before the feast of Saint Bede the 
Venerable, Duke William was again at Cam-Bridge, 
and with a far greater army and train than he had 
sent thither the preceding year; and at the same time 
a great fleet of ships and barks began to be prepared 
in the London river. No more witches were sent for, 
but William called over many more experienced 
warriors from France, and ordered barks to be equipped 
in the rivers and ports of Normandie. The traitorous 
Dane had told him that he must leave his war horses 
in their stalls, and think of ships and boats, if he 
would drive the amphibious Saxon out of the fen 
country. 

While the banner of William floated over the Julius 
Tower, or Keep, on the tall mound by Cam-Bridge, 
country hinds and labourers of all sorts, and horses 
and draught oxen, and mules and asses too numerous 
to count, were collected within the fortified camp; 
and again timber and stones and burned bricks were 
brought from all parts of the land, and in greater 
abundance than before. For several weeks nothing 


286 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


was heard but the sawing of wood and the hewing and 
chipping of stone, and a loud and incessant hammer¬ 
ing. A stranger to the history and present woes of 
England might have thought that the Normans were 
going to build a Tower of Babel, or that, penitent for 
the mischief they had done, they were going to 
rebuild the town at Cam-Bridge, in order to bring 
back the affrighted muses, and the houseless professors 
of learning, and the pining English students to 
sumptuous inns and halls. In truth there seemed 
work and stuff enough to furnish out a great city 
altogether new. But, upon a near view T , a knowing 
eye would have seen that all this toil was for the 
making of engines of war, of towers to place along 
the causeway, of bridges to throw across the streams, 
and of other ponderous machines to aid the Normans 
in crossing the fens, and in carrying the horrors of 
war into the last asylum of Saxon liberty. 

And while they travailed thus on the south side of 
the Island of Ely under the watchful and severe eye of 
Duke William, other Normans and other Saxon serfs 
(poor slaves constrained to this unpalatable task) 
laboured in the north under the eyes of various chiefs 
who had been promised in fiefs all the lands which 
they should conquer. With such of the ships and 
barks of the fleet as were first ready, a host was 
sent up the Wash and up the fen waters as high as 
Wisbech; and these ships carried with them good 
store of timber and other materials, and, besides the 
soldiers, many good builders, who began forthwith to 
build a causeway and a castle at Wisbech. Thus 
threatened on both faces of the fen country. Lord 
Hereward had much to do: but he flew from side to 
side as the occasion called for his presence; and, 
with the aid of Girolamo, that cunning man, and the 


THE NORMAN DUKE TRIES AGAIN 287 

willing and ready labour of the fen people, he speedily 
built up another castle, partly of wood and partly of 
earth and turves, to face the Normans’ castle at 
Wisbech, and to render their causeway there of none 
avail: and is not the ruin of this castle seen even in 
our day ? And is it not called Castle Here ward ? 
And do not the now happy and peaceful fenners relate 
how many assaults and bickerings and battles took 
place on the spot ? 

When his own preparations were well advanced on 
the side of the river Cam, Duke William sent his 
half-brother Robert, whom he had made Earl of 
Moreton, to take more ships and men, and go from 
the river Thamesis to the Wash and the new castle 
at Wisbech, and there tarry quietly until the day 
next after the Festival of Saint John the Baptist, 
when he was to attack Castle Hereward with all his 
force, and press into the Isle of Ely from the north, 
while he, the Duke, should be preparing to invade 
the island from the south. But this Count Robert, 
being but a gross and dull-witted man, did not com¬ 
prehend all the meaning of his orders, and because 
he reached Wisbech Castle sooner than had been 
expected, and got all ready to fight two days before 
Saint John’s Day, he must needs fall on at once. 
Now the Lord of Brunn, with one eye upon Count 
Robert, and one upon Duke William, gathered great 
force to a head at Castle Hereward, beat the dull- 
witted man, slew with the edge of the sword or drove 
into the fens more than half his knights and men-at- 
arms, set the new castle at Wisbech in a blaze, and 
burned a good part of it, and was back at Ely and 
with the Saxon army in the great camp before Count 
Robert had recovered from his amaze, and long before 
Duke William could learn anything of the matter. 


288 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


And so it chanced that when, on the day next after 
Saint John’s Day, Duke William moved with his 
mighty host and machines of war from the castle at 
Cam-Bridge towards the Camp of Refuge, in the full 
belief that the attention of the Saxons would be all 
distracted, and that Hereward, their great leader, 
would be away on the shores of the Wash and hotly 
engaged with Count Robert, the bold Lord of Brunn 
had his eye solely upon him, and with men elate 
with victory was watching his approach, even as he 
had long been watching and preparing for it. The 
broken old road was repaired, and the now diminished 
streams were made passable by means of the wooden 
bridges which the Norman soldiers carried or caused 
to be carried with them, and by throwing down 
stones, and timber, and bricks, and dry earth in 
strong wooden frames, Duke William, after three 
days of cruel labour and toils, which killed many of 
his people, got within sight of the deep waters of 
Ely, and caught a distant view of the Witchford, 
where his Norman witch had crossed over. But the 
ford was now guarded by a double castle, or double 
fort; the one on this side of the stream, and the other 
on that ; and the further bank and the plain 
beyond it seemed, as the Duke approached a little 
nearer, to be covered with a Saxon army, and with 
trophies taken from the Normans. Onward, however, 
he went until he saw the banner of his half-brother 
Count Robert held out over the wooden walls of the 
Saxons; but then he understood full well what had 
befallen his people at Wisbech; and so, like the per¬ 
severing and prudent commander that he was, he 
ordered an immediate retreat. But it passed his 
skill and his might to conduct this retreat in a safe 
and orderly manner; the Normans got confused, and 


THE NORMAN DUKE TRIES AGAIN 289 

Hereward, crossing at the ford, charged through thick 
and thin, through bog and dry ground, and along the 
temporary causeway which had been made : the bridges 
of wood broke down under excess of weight; Duke 
William himself fell into deep water and was nearly 
drowned, and many of his people were wholly drowned 
or smothered, while many more were slain by the 
sword or taken prisoners. And still the bold Saxons, 
as they followed, shouted ' Hereward for England ! 
Stop, thou Bastard William ! Thou art running as fast 
as thy brother Robert ran from Castle Hereward ! ’ 
After this misadventure Duke William judged more 
favourably of the conduct of his many commanders 
who had failed in the same enterprise; and seeing all 
the difficulties of the war, and the inexhaustible 
resources of that cunning captain, the Lord of Brunn, 
he called a council in the castle at Cam-Bridge, and 
there determined to try no more battles and assaults, 
but to rely solely upon a close blockade of the Isle of 
Ely. Forthwith orders were sent to all the com¬ 
manders of posts round the fen country (the dull- 
witted Count Robert was recalled from Wisbech, and 
an abler captain sent to that vicinage) to strengthen 
themselves in their several positions by building towers 
and walls, and digging trenches, and by increasing the 
numbers of their men-at-arms; but at the same time 
they were strictly commanded to make no movement 
beyond the limits of their defensive works, however 
great the temptation to attack the Saxons might be. 
The great fleet so long collecting in the river Thamesis, 
and which was in good part composed of English 
vessels which the Danes had captured and then sold to 
Duke William, was sent round the coast well filled 
with fighting men, and piloted by some of those 
Danish mariners and sea-rovers who knew so well all 


T 


290 THE CAMP OF REFUGE 

the bays and rivers on this eastern coast; and by the 
end of the month of July, or a little before the Feast 
of Saint Ethel wold, every station on the coast, from 
the mouth of the Orwell to the broader mouth of the 
river Humber, was watched and guarded, and every 
estuary, river, or creek that gave egress from the fen 
country was blocked up by ships and barks, in such 
sort that the Saxons in the Camp of Refuge could no 
longer have any communication with the sea, or with 
the countries beyond the sea, from whence they had 
been wont to draw arms and munitions of war, and 
corn, wines, and oil, and other supplies. By the same 
means all aid and friendly intercourse were completely 
cut off; the good Saxons dwelling in a sort of in¬ 
dependence on the northern shores of England, and 
the good Englishmen that had fled into Scotland, 
could no longer send their barks up the Wash and the 
Ouse with provisions and comfort for the house of Ely 
and the Camp; and thus the whole Isle of Ely was 
cut off, by land and by water, from all the rest of the 
world, and was girded by a mighty chain, the links of 
which seemed every day to grow stronger. 

Many were the bold essays which the Lord of 
Brunn made to break up this blockade. Twice, 
descending the Ouse, or the Welland, with the barks 
he had stationed at Ely, and near to Spalding, he 
defeated and drove away the enemy’s ships, and 
burned some of them with that unquenchable fire 
which the Salernitan knew how to make; but after 
these actions the Normans and their shipmen became 
more watchful and cautious, keeping outside of the 
mouths of the rivers, and continuing to increase their 
force; for other ships and barks, both great and 
small, came over from Normandie, and others were 
hired for this service among the sea-dwelling Nether- 


THE NORMAN DUKE TRIES AGAIN 291 

landers, who seemed evermore disposed to serve 
whatever faction could pay them best. And alas ! 
the Normans had now their hands in the great and 
ever-filling treasury of broad England, and the true 
sons of England, whether at Ely or in the Camp, 
had no longer any gold or silver, or any means of 
sending forth that which can bring back money or 
the money’s worth. Horned cattle had they still in 
some abundance, nor was there, as yet, any scarcity 
in sheep, or in wool, or in hides; but of corn to 
make the bread, which is the staff of life, and of 
wine, which maketh glad the heart of man, was 
there little or none left in this part of the land; 
forasmuch as that the fen country did not grow 
much corn at any season, and the last season had 
been one of dearth, and only a few butts of wine had 
been brought over since the departure of the Danes, 
owing to the lack of money above mentioned. Those 
sea-rovers, having drunk almost the last drop of 
wine as well as carried off the last treasures of the 
house, had greatly disheartened and troubled many 
of the monks of Ely, and murmurs, and censures, 
and base thoughts now began to rise among several 
of the cloister monks who, down to this evil time, 
had been the steadiest friends of the Lord Abbat, 
Thurstan. Truly, truly, their trial was hard, and 
difficult for true Saxon stomachs to bear! The 
octave of Saint John had come and passed without 
anything that could be called a feast: on the day 
of Saint Joseph of Arimathea they had no wine to 
drink, and on the day of that high Saxon saint, 
Osevald, king and martyr, they had no bread to eat 
with their roast meats. These were sad things to a 
brotherhood that had been wont to fare so well, and 
whose feasts, it hath been said by our old poet (a 


292 THE CAMP OF REFUGE 

monk of the house), were as superior to the feasts 
of all the other monasteries of England as (lay is 
superior to night:— 

Praevisis aliis, Eliensia festa videre 

Est, quasi preevisa nocte, videre diem. 

Yet the bountiful Abbat Thurstan, who had given 
the best feasts of all that the house had ever known, 
and who loved as much as any man to see the drinking- 
horn go round, kept up his good spirit without wine— 
it was sustained by his generous love of country and 
liberty !—and he reasoned well with those he heard 
murmur, and yet held out to them the prospect of 
better times when corn should come in from the 
upland country in abundance, and good wine from 
beyond sea. 

If want began to be felt among the monks of Ely, 
it is not to be believed but that it was felt still more 
sharply among the Saxon fighting men collected in the 
Camp of Refuge. But the stomachs of these warriors 
were not so dainty as the stomachs of the monks, and 
the commonalty of them, being accustomed to fare 
hard before now, made no complaint. Alas, no! It 
was not through the malecontent of these rude men, 
nor through these lay stomachs, but through the malice 
and gluttony of cloister-monks, that the sanctuary was 
violated. 

The Lord of Brunn having emptied his own granaries 
and cellars for the behoof of the house at Ely, made 
sundry very desperate forays, breaking through the 
Norman chain of posts, and going far in the upland 
country in search of supplies, and risking his noble 
life, more than once, for nought but a sack of wheat, or 
a cask of ale, or a firkin of mead. While the blockade 
was as yet young, a few devout pilgrims, who would 


THE NORMAN DUKE TRIES AGAIN 2 93 

not be shut out from the shrines of the Saxon saints at 
Ely, nor fail to offer up their little annual offerings, and 
a few sturdy friends who knew the straits to which the 
monks were about to be reduced, eluded the vigilance 
of the Normans, and found their way, through those 
mazes of waters and labyrinths of woods, to the abbey, 
and carried with them some small supplies: but as 
time went on and the force of the Normans increased 
as well by land as by water, these hazardous journeys 
were stopped, and divers of the poor Saxons were 
caught, and were then pitilessly hanged as rebels and 
traitors; and then a law was banded that every man, 
woman, or child, that attempted to go through the 
fen country, either to Ely Abbey or the Camp of 
Refuge, would be hanged or crucified. But, alack ! 
real traitors to their country were afterwards allowed 
to pass the Norman posts, and go on to Ely Abbey, and 
it was through their agency and the representations of 
some of the Normans that were taken prisoners in war 
and carried to the monastery, that the envious prior, 
and the chamberlain, and the cellarer, and the rest of 
that foul faction were emboldened to raise their voice 
publicly against the good Abbat, and to lay snares in 
the path of the Lord of Brunn. Now the same troubles 
arose out of the same causes in Crowland Abbey, 
where sundry of the cloister monks began to say that 
since they could get no bread and wine it were best to 
make terms with the Norman Abbat of Peterborough 
(that Torauld of Fescamp who had been released upon 
ransom, and was again making himself terrible), give 
up the cause of Lord Hereward, who had restored 
them to their house, and had given up wealth and 
honours abroad to come and serve his country, and 
submit like peaceable subjects of King William, whose 
power was too great to be any longer disputed. But 


294 THE CAMP OF REFUGE 

here, at Crowland, these things were for a long time 
said in great secrecy, and whispered in the dormitories 
by night. It was the same in the succursal cell at 
Spalding; and the coming danger was the greater 
from the secrecy and mystery of the traitorous part of 
these communities. Father Ad helm, the good prior of 
Spalding, knew of no danger, and could believe in no 
treachery until the Philistines were upon him ; and it 
was mainly owing to this his security, and to his repre 
sentations of the safety of that corner of the fens, that 
the Lord of Brunn sent his wife and infant son, with 
maid Mildred and other women, to dwell in the strong 
manor-house at Spalding, which belonged to the Ladie 
Lucia, wife of Ivo Taille-Bois, and cousin to the Ladie 
Alftrude. The Camp of Refuge and the town of Ely 
had not, for some time past, been fitting abiding-place 
for ladies and delicate children; but now the Normans 
were closing in their line of blockade on that side, and, 
although they meant it not, they seemed to be on the 
eve of making a desperate assault on the Camp, having, 
with incredible labour, laid down under the eyes and 
with the direction of Duke William, another causeway, 
which was far broader and more solid than any of the 
others, and which ran across the fens towards the 
waters of Ely for the distance of two well-measured 
miles. It was Elfric that commanded the party which 
gave convoy to the Ladie Alftrude; and well we wot 
he wished the journey had been a longer one : yet 
when his duty was done, and the whole party safely 
lodged in the battlemented and moated house at Spald¬ 
ing, he quitted maid Mildred, though with something 
of a heavy heart, and hastened back to join his toil- 
oppressed master. And careworn and toil-oppressed 
indeed was now that joyous and frank-hearted Lord of 
Brunn, for he had to think of everything, and to pro- 


THE NORMAN DUKE TRIES AGAIN 295 

vide for everything; and save in Girolamo the Saler¬ 
nitan, and Elfric his armour-bearer, he had but few 
ready-witted men to aid him in his increasing difficul¬ 
ties. Nevertheless, the defences at the Witchford were 
strengthened, numerous trenches and canals were dug 
to render the Witch plain impassable, even if the river 
should be crossed, and bands of Saxons, armed with 
bows, bills, pole-axes, swords and clubs, or long fen- 
poles, were kept on the alert by night as well as by 
day, to march to any point which the Normans might 
attack. 

Now, we have said it, William the Norman was a 
great and cunning commander (ye might have searched 
through the world at that time, and have found none 
greater !), and being thus skilled, and having a fearless 
heart withal, and a sort of lion magnanimity, he was 
proper to judge of the skill of other captains, and not 
incapable of admiring and lauding that skill even in an 
enemy. And as from his causeway (even as from a 
ship in the midst of the waters) he watched the 
defences which Hereward raised, and all the rapid and 
wise movements he made, he ofttimes exclaimed, ' By 
the splendour! this Saxon is a right cunning captain ! 
It were worth half a realm could I win him over to 
my service. But, O Hereward, since thou wilt not 
submit, thou must perish in thy pride through hunger, 
or in the meshes which I am spreading for thee.’ 


CHAPTER XXI 


THE MONKS OF ELY COMPLAIN AND PLOT 

As no corn came, and no wine could be had, the 
tribulations and murraurings in the monastery grew 
louder and louder. Certain of the monks had never 
looked with a friendly eye upon Girolamo the Saler¬ 
nitan, but now there was suddenly raised an almost 
universal clamour among them that that dark-visaged 
and thin-bodied alien was, and ever had been, a necro¬ 
mancer. Unmindful of the many services he had done, 
and forgetting how many times they had, when the 
drinking-horns could be well filled, rejoiced and jubil¬ 
ated at his successes, and specialiter on that not far by¬ 
gone day when he had burned the Norman witch, in 
the midst of her incantations, with the reeds and grass 
of the fen, the monks now called him by the foulest 
and most horrible of all names, and some of them even 
called out for his death. These men said that if 
Girolamo were brought to the stake and burned as he 
had burned the Norman witch, the wrath of Heaven 
would be appeased, and matters would go much better 
with the house of St. Etheldreda, and with all the 
English people. Albeit they all knew how innocently 
those devils had been made; and, albeit they had seen 
with their own eyes that Girolamo was constant at 
prayers, mass, and confession, and that he never pre¬ 
pared his mixtures and compounds until after prayer 
296 


MONKS OF ELY COMPLAIN AND PLOT 297 

and long fasting (to say nothing of his frequently 
partaking in the Sacrament of our Lord’s Supper), they 
rumoured, even like the Normans, that he had raised 
devils, and employed fen-fiends, and incubuses, and 
succubuses, and had lit hell-fires upon the pools and 
within the holy house at Crowland ; that he was ever 
attended by a demon, called by him Chemeia; that he 
had been a Jew, and next a follower of Mahound ; that 
he had sold his soul to the devil of devils at Jerusalem 
or Mecca: that he did not eat and drink like Saxons 
and Christians, only because he went to graves and 
charnel-houses at the dead of night, and feasted upon 
the bodies of the dead with his fiends and hell¬ 
hounds—with a great deal more too horrible and 
obscene to mention. 

Now before a breath of this bad wind reached him, 
Girolamo had begun to grow a-weary of the fen 
country; and but for his deadly hatred to the Norman 
race and his great love for the Lord of Brunn, he would 
have quitted it and England long before this season, 
to wander again into some sunny climate. Ofttimes 
would he say to himself in his solitary musings : ‘ O 
flat, wet, and fenny land, shall mine eyes never more 
behold a mountain ? O fogs, and vapours, and clouds 
for ever dropping rain, shall I never see a bright blue 
sky again ? O fireless, watery sun, scarcely brighter 
or warmer than the moon in my own land beyond the 
Alps and the Apennines, shall I never see thee 
again in thy glory ? Am I to perish in these swamps 
—to be buried in a bog ? Oh for one glimpse, before 
I die, of mine own blue mountains, and bright blue 
seas and skies !—one glance at thy bay, O beautiful 
Salerno, and at the mountain of Saint Angelo and the 
hills of Amalfi, at the other mountains, and hills, and 
olive-groves, and gay vineyards that gird thee in! 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


298 

There be no hills here but mud-banks; no trees but 
dull alders and willows. But courage, sinking heart, 
or sinking, shivering frame, for there is food here for 
my revenge; there be Normans here to circumvent 
and kill! ’ 

So did the Salernitan commune with himself in his 
many lonely hours (many because he sought them 
and avoided the society of men) before the evil 
tongues were wagged against him. Upon his first 
hearing what the monks were then beginning to say 
of him, he only muttered to himself, ‘ This is a dull- 
witted generation that I have fallen among ! These 
Saxons go still on all-fours ! They are but ultra¬ 
montan es and barbarians, knowing nothing of the 
history of past ages, or of the force and effect of the 
natural sciences ! Dolts are they all except the Lord 
Hereward, and his share of wit is so great that none 
is left for his countrymen. But Hereward is worthy 
of ancient Rome ; and it is not the stupid sayings of 
his people that will make me quit his side and 
disappoint my vengeance. I have done these same 
Saxons some good service, and I will do them more 
before I die or go hence. They will think better of 
me when they knoAv more of me, and of the natural 
means wherewith I work mine ends. Ha! ha! I 
needs must laugh when I hear that Girolamo of 
Salerno, the witch-seeker and the destroyer of witches, 
the sworn foe to all magic save the Magia Alba, which 
is no magic at all, but only science, should be named 
as a wizard and necromancer ! Oh ! ye good doctors, 
and teachers of Salerno who flourished and began to 
make a school for the study of Nature before the 
Normans came among us, think of this—think of your 
pupil, penitent, and devotee, being taken in these dark 
septentrional regions for a sorcerer ! Ha ! ha ! * 


MONKS OF ELY COMPLAIN AND PLOT 299 

But when Girolamo saw that the Saxon people 
were beginning to avoid him as one that had the pest, 
and that the monks of Ely were pointing at him with 
the finger, and that silent tongues and angry eyes, 
with crossings and spittings on the ground and coarse 
objurgations, met him wherever he went, he grew 
incensed and spoke freely with the Lord of Brunn 
about it. 

* Girolamo, my friend and best coadjutor,’ said 
the Lord of Brunn, f think nothing of it! This is 
but the talk of ignorance or malice. Beshrew me an 
I do not think that the Normans have gotten some 
traitor to raise this babel and thereby injure us. But 
the Lord Abbat Thurstan, who hath shrieved and 
assoiled thee so often, will now answer for the purity 
of thy faith as for his own, and will silence these 
murmurers.’ 

But it was not so : Here ward made too large an 
account not of the good will, but of the power of 
Thurstan, not knowing all that passed in the chapters 
of the house, nor so much as suspecting half of the 
cabals that w T ere framing in secret meetings and in 
close discussions by night in the dormitories. No 
sooner had the Lord Abbat begun to reprehend such 
as spoke evil of the Salernitan, than the factious and 
false parts of the monks declared among themselves 
that, Christian prelate as he was, he had linked him¬ 
self with a sorcerer; and in charges they had already 
prepared, and with great privacy written down upon 
parchment, they inserted this : that Abbat Thurstan, 
unmindful of the duties of his holy office, and in 
contempt of the remonstrances of the prior, the 
chamberlain, and others, the majority of the house of 
Ely, had made himself the friend and defensor of the 
said Girolamo of Salerno, that dark mysterious man 



300 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


who had notoriously sold himself to the arch-fiend, 
who had gone into the depths and iniquities of necro¬ 
mancy beyond all precedent, and who had, by his truly 
diabolical art, raised devils, trafficked with witches, and 
brought hell-fires upon earth. 

It was at this juncture of time that two pretended 
pilgrims and devotees of Saint Etheldreda arrived at 
the guest-house of Ely, giving out that they had with 
great risk and real danger found their way through 
the lines of the beleaguering Normans, but that, so 
entire was their devotion to the saint, no perils could 
prevent them from coming to the shrine. It was not 
much noted at the time, but it was well remembered 
afterwards, and when it was all too late, that these 
two palmers spent much more of their time in walk¬ 
ing and talking outside the abbey walls with the 
prior and the chamberlain, than in praying inside the 
church and in the chapel of the saint; that they 
seemed to shun the Lord Abbat, and that they took 
their departure in a sudden manner, and without 
taking leave of the Abbat as good pilgrims were wont 
to do. And almost immediately after the departure 
of the two false palmers, a proclamation was made 
by sound of trumpet and by Duke William’s orders, 
that the Abbat of Ely, having leagued himself with 
a sorcerer (having long before leagued himself with 
traitors and rebels and robbers), had incurred the 
anathemas of the Church, which would soon be pro¬ 
nounced upon him by bell, book, and candle, and 
with all the formalities in use. And after this had 
been proclaimed by sound of trumpet in the Camp, 
and at the cross of the town of Cam-Bridge, and at 
the crosses of Peterborough, Huntingdon, Stamford, 
and many other town, the cloister monks most ad¬ 
verse to the Lord Abbat began to throw off all secrecy 



MONKS OF ELY COMPLAIN AND PLOT 301 

and disguise, and to talk as loud as trumpets both 
in the streets of Ely and in the monastery, calling 
Girolamo a sorcerer and worse. Upon this the dark 
Salernitan came up from the Camp to the monastery, 
and demanded to be heard in the church or in the 
hall, in the presence of the whole house. Thurstan, 
with right good will, assented; and although some of 
the monks tried to oppose it, Girolamo was admitted 
to plead his own defence and justification in the 
great hall. It was the envious prior’s doing, but the 
novices and all the younger monks were shut out, for 
the prior feared greatly the effect of the speech of 
the Salernitan, who by this time had made himself 
master of the Saxon tongue, while in the Latin 
tongue and in Latin quotations, Girolamo had few 
equals on this side the Alps. He presented himself 
alone, having forcibly and successfully opposed the 
Lord Hereward, who would fain have accompanied 
him to the abbey. 

f If you should be with me/ he had said to the 
Lord of Brunn, f they will impute it to me, in case of 
my effacing these vile stigmas, that I have only been 
saved by your favour and interference, or by the respect 
and awe which is due to you, or by the dread they 
entertain of your arms; and should I fail in my 
defence, they might afterwards work you great mischief 
by representing you as mine advocate. No ! good my 
Lord, alone will I stand upon my defence, and bring 
down confusion upon these calumniators ! ’ 

And thus it was all alone that the dark and thin 
and sad Salernitan entered the great hall, in the 
midst of a coughing and spitting, and an uplifting 
and a turning away of eyes, as if the monks felt 
sulphur in their gorges, and saw some fearful and 
supernatural object with their eyes. Nothing abashed, 


302 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


the Salernitan threw off the black mantle which he 
ordinarily wore, and stepping into the midst of the 
hall—the monks being seated all round him—he 
made the blessed sign of the cross, threw up his 
hands for a moment as if in prayer, and then spoke. 
And when he first began to speak, although he more 
immediately faced the abbat and his friendly honest 
countenance, his coal-black eyes, which seemed all of 
a blaze, rested and were fixed upon the envious false 
visage of the prior, who wriggled in his seat, and 
whose eyes were bent upon the ground, all unable to 
encounter the burning glances of that animated, irate 
Italian. 

f My good Lord Abbat,’ said Girolamo, looking, as 
we have said, not at Thurstan, but at the prior, 
f what is this horrid thing that I hear? What are 
these evil rumours which have been raised against 
me, while I have been adventuring my life for the 
service of this house and the good Saxon cause ? ’ 

f There hath been some idle talk about sortilege, 
and it grieves me to say that this idle talk hath 
of late become very loud in this house/ responded 
Thurstan. 

f And who be they who first raised this talk ? ’ said 
Girolamo; ' where are my accusers ? Who are the 
members of this house that have not seen as well 
my devotion to Heaven as the earthly and natural 
and legitimate means by which I have worked out 
mine ends for the furtherance of the good cause ? 
Where are they, that I may speak to them and tell 
them to their faces how much they have erred or how 
greatly they have lied ? But they dare not look me 
in the face ! ’ 

And as he said these words he turned his burning eyes 
from the prior to the chamberlain, and then from the 


MONKS OF ELY COMPLAIN AND PLOT 303 

chamberlain to anothe cankerous monk, and to another, 
and another, and they all pulled their cowls over their 
brows and looked down upon the floor. 

But at last the chamberlain found voice and courage 
enough to raise his head a little; and he said, ‘ O 
stranger! since thy first coming amongst us thou hast 
done things most strange—so strange that wise and 
good men have thought they have seen the finger of 
the devil in it.’ 

Quoth the Salernitan, e It was to do strange things 
that I came hither, and it was because I could do 
them that the brave and pious Lord of Brunn brought 
me with him to bear part in a contest which was 
desperate before we came. But I tell thee, O monk, 
that all of even the strangest things I have done have 
been done by legitimate and natural means, and by 
that science which I have acquired by long study and 
much fasting, and much travelling in far-off countries, 
where many things are known which are as yet un¬ 
known in these thy boreal regions. To speak not of 
the marvels I have witnessed in the East, I tell thee, 
Saxon, that I have seen the doctors who teach, or 
who used to teach, in the schools of my native town 
before the Norman barbarians came among us, do 
things that would make thy dull eyes start out of 
their sockets, and the hair stand erect round thy 
tonsure ; and yet these doctors and teachers were 
members of that Christian Church to which thou, 
and I, and all of us belong—were doctors in divinity, 
and priests, and confessors, and men of holy lives ; 
and it never passed through their bright and pure 
minds that what the ignorant could not understand 
should be imputed to them or to their scholars as a 
crime. Saxon, I say, take the beam of ignorance out 
of thine eye, and then wilt thou see that man can do 


304 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


marvellous things without magic or the aid of the 
devil. The real wizard or witch is the lowest and 
most benighted of mankind, and necromancy can be 
employed only for the working out of wicked and 
detestable ends. But what was and what is the end 
I have in view ? Is it wicked to defend this house 
and the shrines of your national saints from violence 
and spoliation ? Is it detestable in one who hath 
known in his own person and in his own country the 
woes of foreign conquest, to devote his sword and his 
life, his science, and all the little that is his, to the 
cause of a generous people struggling against fearful 
odds for their independence, and fighting for their 
own against these Norman invaders ! * 

f By Saint Etheldreda,’ said Abbat Thurstan, ‘ these 
ends and objects cannot be sinful! and as sinful means 
can be employed only for sinful ends, so can righteous 
ends be served only by righteous means. Fire mingles 
with fire, and water with water: but fire and water 
will not mingle or co-exist.’ 

And divers of the cloister monks, who had never 
been touched by the venom that was about to ruin 
the house of Ely and the whole country of England, 
took up and repeated the Abbat’s words, speaking 
also of the facts in evidence, as that Girolamo the 
Salernitan had many times conferred great benefit 
on the Saxon cause, and the like. And even some of 
the house who had turned too ready an ear to their 
own fears, or to the evil and crafty whisperings and 
suggestions of the prior and his faction, assented to 
Thurstan’s proposition, and said that verily it appeared 
the Salernitan was free from the damnable guilt 
wherewith he was charged, and that if he had used 
any magic at all, it was only that Magia Alba, or 
White Magic, which proceeded from the study and 


MONKS OF ELY COMPLAIN AND PLOT 305 

ingenuity of man, and which might be used without 
sin. 

Now as these things were said in the hall, the 
prior, fearing that his plot might be counter-plotted, 
and the meshes he had woven be torn to pieces, and 
blown to the winds, waxed very desperate; and, after 
whispering for awhile in the ear of the chamberlain 
who sat by him, he threw his cowl back from his 
head, and, standing up, spoke passionately. But while 
the prior spoke he never once looked at Girolamo, 
who remained standing in the middle of the great 
hall, firm and erect, and with his arms crossed over 
his breast. No ! desperate as he was, the prior could 
not meet the fiery glances of that dark thin man; and 
so he either looked at the round and ruddy face of 
Thurstan, or in the faces of those monks of his own 
faction who had made up their minds to support him 
in all that he might say or do. 

f It seemeth to me/ said the prior, f that a wicked 
man may pretend to serve a good cause only for the 
sake of injuring it, and that a weak man may be 
brought to believe that good can come out of things 
that are evil, and that witchcraft and all manner of 
wickednesses may be employed against an enemy, 
albeit this is contrary to the doctrine of our Church, 
and is provocative of the wrath of Heaven. Now, 
from the first coming of this alien among us, things 
have gone worse and worse with us. Not but that 
there have been certain victories and other short 
glimpses of success, meant only to work upon our 
ungodly pride, and delude us and make our present 
misery the keener. When this alien first came, the 
Lord Abbat liked him not—I need not tell ye, my 
brethren, that the Lord Abbat said to many of us, 
that he liked not the looks of the stranger the Lord 


u 


306 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


Hereward brought with him; or that I and the 
cellarius, and many more of us, thought from the 
beginning that the man was a Jew—an Israelite— 
yea, one of that accursed race that crucified our 
Lord! . . .’ 

‘Liar or idiot/ said the fiery man of Italie, ‘thou 
wilt be cursed for saying it! * 

‘That which I have said I have said/ quoth the 
prior; ‘we took thee for a Jew, and the Lord Abbat 
confessed, then, that thou didst verily look like one, 
although he hath altered his tone since. And, 
stranger, I now tell thee to thy face ’—but still the 
prior looked not in Girolamo’s face—‘that I believe 
thou mayest well be that wandering Jew that cannot 
die until the Day of Judgment come/ 

The Salernitan shrieked rather than said, ‘ This is 
too horrible, too atrocious ! Malignant monk, wouldst 
drive me mad, and make me slay thee here in the 
midst of thy brothers ? ’ 

‘ In this hallowed place I am safe from thy magic 
and incantations/ said the prior. 

Girolamo could not speak, for the words stuck in 
his throat, but he would, mayhap, have sprung upon 
the prior with his dagger, if the Lord Abbat had not 
instantly raised his hand and his voice, and said : 

‘ Peace ! stranger, peace ! Let the prior say all that 
he hath to say, and then thou shalt answer him. 
Nay, by Saint Etheldreda ! by Saint Sexburga, and by 
every saint in our Calendarium, I will answer him 
too ! For is he not bringing charges against me, and 
seeking to deprive me of that authority over this 
house which was given me by heaven, and by King 
Edward the Confessor, and by the unanimous vote of 
the brethren of Ely in chapter assembled ? Prior, I 
have long known what manner of man thou art, and 


MONKS OF ELY COMPLAIN AND PLOT 307 

how thou hast been pining and groaning and plotting 
for my seat and crozier; but thou art now bolder 
than thou wast wont to be. ’Tis well! Therefore 
speak out, and do ye, my children, give ear unto him. 
Then speak, prior ! Go on, I say ! ’ 

In saying these words, Lord Thurstan was well nigh 
as much angered as Girolamo had been ; but his anger 
was of a different kind, and instead of growing deadly 
pale and ashey like the Salernitan, his face became as 
red as fire ; and instead of moving and clenching his 
right hand, as though he would clutch some knife or 
dagger, he merely struck with his doubled fist upon 
the table before him, giving the table mighty raps. 
All this terrified the craven heart of the prior, who 
stood speechless and motionless, and who would have 
returned to his seat if the cellarer had not approached 
him and comforted him, and if several cloister monks 
of the faction had not muttered, ' Go on to the end, 
O prior! thou hast made a good beginning.’ 

And then the prior said, ' I w'ill go on if they will 
give me pledge not to interrupt me until I have done.’ 

c I give the pledge,’ said the Abbat; and the 
Salernitan said, 'The pledge is given.’ 

Being thus heartened, the prior went on. ' Girolamo 
the Salernitan,’ he said, ' had been seen gnashing his 
teeth and shooting fire out of his eyes at the elevation 
of the Most Holy; had been heard muttering in an 
unknown tongue behind the high altar, and among 
the tombs and shrines of the saints; and also had he 
often been seen wandering by night, when honest 
Christians were in their beds, among the graves of 
the poor of Ely, and gazing at the moon and stars, 
and talking to some unseen demon. He had never 
been seen to eat and drink enough to support life; 
and therefore it was clear that he saved his stomach 


308 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


for midnight orgies in the churchyard with devils 
and witches. It was not true that all the devils at 
Crowland were sham devils, for some of the novices 
and lay-brothers of the house, and some of the clowns 
of Crowland town, who had been seduced, and made 
to disguise themselves in order to give a cover to 
what was doing, had since declared that, although 
all their company made only twelve in number, they 
had seen twice twelve when the infernal lights were 
lit in the dark cellars of the house where their pranks 
began; and it was a notable fact that one of the 
Crowland hinds, first cousin to Orson the smith, had 
been so terrified at this increase of number and at 
all that he had heard and seen on that fearful night, 
that he had gone distraught, and had never yet 
recovered it. It was known unto all men how, not 
only on that night and in that place, but also on 
many other nights and in many other places, the 
alien had made smells that were not of earth, nor 
capable of being made by earthly materials, and had 
made fire burn upon water, mixing flame and flood ! 
Now, the Lord Abbat himself had said that fire and 
water would not mingle! Nor would they but by 
magic. The convent would all remember this ! Not 
content with possessing the diabolical arts himself, 
Girolamo had imparted them to another. Elfric the 
sword-bearer, from whom better things might have 
been expected, considering his training in a godly 
house, had been seen mixing and using these hellish 
preparations which he could not have done if he had 
not first spat upon the cross and covenanted with 
witches and devils. Nay, so bold-faced had this young 
man been in his crime that he hath done this openly ! 
The stranger had been seen many times in battle, and 
in the thickest of the fight, yet, while the Saxons fell 


MONKS OF ELY COMPLAIN AND PLOT 309 

thick around him, and every man that was not killed 
was wounded, he got no hurt—no not the smallest! 
When the arrows came near him they turned aside 
or fell at his feet without touching him. There was a 
Norman knight lately a prisoner in the Saxon Camp, 
who declared that when he was striking at the thin 
stranger with the certainty of cleaving him with his 
battle-axe, the axe turned aside in his firm strong hands 
as though some invisible hand had caught hold of it. 
Moreover, there was a Norman man-at-arms who had 
solemnly vowed that he had thrust his sword right 
through the thin body of the alien, had driven the hilt 
home on his left breast; and that when he withdrew 
his sword, instead of falling dead to the earth, the 
stranger stood erect, laughing scornfully at him, and 
losing no blood, and showing no sign of any wound. 
Now all these things fortified the belief that the stranger 
was the Jew that could not die ! * 

Seeing that a deep impression was made upon many 
of his hearers who had gone into the hall with the 
determination of believing that there had been no 
magic and that nothing unlawful had been done by 
the defenders of the liberties of the Saxon people and 
the privileges of the Saxon Church, the cunning prior 
turned his attack upon Thurstan. ‘ It was notorious/ 
he said, ‘ that Thurstan had been a profuse and waste¬ 
ful abbat of that house, taking no thought of the 
morrow, but feasting rich and poor when the house 
was at the poorest; that he was a man that never kept 
any balance between what he got and what he gave ; 
and that he had always turned the deaf side of his 
head to those discreet brothers the chamberlain, the 
sacrist, the cellarer and refectorarius, who had long 
since foretold the dearth and famine which the convent 
were now suffering.’ Here nearly every monk present 


310 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


laid his right hand upon his abdomen and uttered a 
groan. 'It was known unto all of them/ said the 
prior, e that under the rule and government of Thurstan 
such things had been done in the house as had never 
been done under any preceding abbat. The shrine- 
boxes had been emptied ; the plates of silver and of 
gold, the gifts of pious kings and queens, had been 
taken from the shrines themselves; the treasure 
brought from the abbey of Peterborough had only 
been brought to be given up to the Danes and sent for 
ever from England, together with the last piece of 
silver the pilgrims had left in the house of Ely ! And 
then the Jews! the Jews! Had not dealings been 
opened with them ? Had not a circumcised crew been 
brought into the patrimony of Saint Etheldreda, and 
lodged in the guest house of the abbey ? Had not the 
abbat’s seal been used in sealing securities that were 
now in the hands of the Israelites ? And was not all 
the money gotten from the Jews gone long ago, and 
was not the treasury empty, the granary empty, the 
cellar empty,—was there not an universal void and 
emptiness in all the abbey, and throughout the patri¬ 
mony of Saint Etheldreda?’ The monks groaned 
again. In concluding his long discourse the prior 
raised his unmanly voice as high as it could be raised 
without cracking, and said : ' Upon all and several the 
indubitable facts I have recited, I accuse this Girolamo 
of Salerno of magic and necromancy ; and I charge 
Thurstan, abbat of this house, and Elfric, whilom 
novice in the succursal cell of Spalding, of being 
defensors, fautors, and abettors of the necromancer. 
And what saith the sixteenth of the canons enacted 
under the pious King Edgar? And how doth it 
apply to our abbat ? The canon saith this : “ And we 
enjoin, that every priest zealously promote Christianity 


MONKS OF ELY COMPLAIN AND PLOT 311 

and totally extinguish every heathenism; and forbid 
necromancies and divinations and enchantments, and 
the practices which are carried on with various spells, 
and with frith-splots and with elders, and also with 
various other trees, and with stones, and with many 
various delusions, with which men do much of what 
they should not.” I have done/ 

For a while there was silence, the monks sitting and 
gazing at each other in astonishment and horror. At 
length, seeing that the abbat was almost choked, and 
could not speak at all, Girolamo said, ‘ My lord, may I 
begin ? * 

Thurstan nodded a yea. 

Hereupon the Salernitan went over the whole his¬ 
tory of his past life, with all its sorrows, studies, and 
wanderings; and bade the monks reflect whether such 
a life was not fitted to make a man moody and sad and 
unlike other men. He acknowledged that, as com¬ 
pared with Saxons, and more especially with the Saxon 
monks of Ely, he ate and drank very little; but this 
was because his appetite was not good, and his habit 
of life very different from theirs. He allowed that he 
was fond of wandering about in lonely places, more 
especially by moonlight; but this was because, eating 
little, he required the less sleep, and because the sad¬ 
ness of his heart was soothed by solitude and the quiet 
aspect of the moon and stars. All this, and a great 
deal more, the Salernitan said in a passably composed 
and quiet voice, but when he came to deny and refute 
the charges which the prior had made, his voice pealed 
through that hall like thunder, and his eyes flashed 
like lightning. In concluding he said : ‘ I was ever a 
faithful son of Mother Church. The blessed Pope at 
Rome—Pope Alexander it was—hath put his hand 
upon this unworthy head and given me his benediction. 


3 12 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


The pious abbat of the ancient Benedictine house 
of La Cava that stands in the chasm of the moun¬ 
tain between Salerno and the city of Neapolis held 
me at the baptismal font; cloister monks were my 
early instructors, and learned doctors of the Church 
were my teachers in youth and manhood. I have 
been a witch-seeker and a witch-finder in mine 
own country. Ye have known me, here, burn, or help 
to burn, a witch almost under your own eyes. Jews 
have I ever abhorred, even as much as witches, necro¬ 
mancers, and devils! Saracens and Moors, and all 
that follow Mahound, have I ever hated as Jews, and 
as much as good Christians ought to hate them! O 
prior, that makest thyself my accuser, thou hast been 
a home-staying man, and hast not been called upon to 
testify to thy faith in the lands where heathens rule 
and reign, and Mahound is held to be the prophet of 
God, and superior to God’s own Son. But I tell thee, 
prior, that I have testified to my faith in such places, 
and openly on the threshold of Mahound’s temples 
braving death and seeking a happy martyrdom which, 
alas ! I could not find. Saxons ! in a town in Palestine 
wherein, save a guard of Saracens, there were none 
but Jews, 1 took the chief rabbi by the beard at the 
gate of his synagogue. Saxons! to show my faith I 
have eaten swine’s flesh at Jerusalem, in the midst of 
Saracens and Jews. Saxons! in the Christian coun¬ 
tries of Europe I never met an Israelite without kicking 
him and loading him with reproaches. Bethink ye 
then, after all this, whether I, Girolamo of Salerno, be 
a Jew, or Mahounder or necromancer! If ye are 
weary of me let me be gone to the country from 
which I came. I brought little with me, and shall 
take still less away. If ye would repay with torture 
and death the good I have done ye, seize me now, 


MONKS OF ELY COMPLAIN AND PLOT 313 

throw me into your prison, load me with chains, put 
me to the rack, do with me what ye will, but call me 
not Jew and wizard ! * 

Sundry of the monks said that the words of the 
strangers sounded very like truth and honesty, and 
that of a surety the good Lord Here ward would not 
have brought a wizard with him into England, or have 
lived so long in friendship with a necromancer. Others 
of the cloister monks, but they were few in number, 
said that Girolamo had disproved nothing, and that it 
could be but too well proved that woe and want had 
fallen upon the good house of Ely—that the treasury, 
granary, wine-cellar were all empty. The Lord Abbat 
now spoke, but his anger had cooled, and his speech 
was neither loud nor long. He declared that every 
man, being in his senses and not moved by private 
malice, must be convinced that the Salernitan was a 
good believer and no wizard; and that, whatever he 
had done, however strange some things might appear, 
had been done by means not unlawful. This being 
the case there could be no sin or blame in his having 
made himself the defensor of the stranger, and no sin 
in Elfric’s having associated with him, and assisted in 
his works. ' But/ said the Abbat, f though the prior 
hath not been bold enough to name that name, ye 
must all know and feel that, if this man were a necro¬ 
mancer, charges would lie far more against Hereward, 
our great captain, then against me or that poor young 
man, Elfric. Would ye accuse the Lord of Brunn of 
sorcery and witchcraft ? I see ye dare not, nay, I see 
ye would not! ’ 

As to the daring, Thurstan was right; but as to the 
will, he was wrong; for the prior and the chamberlain, 
and some others, would have accused Hereward if 
they had only had courage enough so to do. 


314 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


The Abbat next told the prior and all the members 
of the house that were present, that he had taken no 
important step without the advice and vote of the 
chapter; that of late, in many cases, the vote in 
chapter had been in direct opposition to his own 
wishes and declared feelings ; and that whether it 
were the taking of the shrine-money, or the bargain¬ 
ing with the Israelites, or the calling back of the 
Danes (that source of so much woe), or the giving up 
of the Peterborough treasure, he had been out-voted 
by the majority, at the head of which had always 
stood the prior and the chamberlain. If honest- 
hearted Thurstan had called for a vote of the brother¬ 
hood at this moment it would have gone for him, and 
the prior and his coadjutors would have been con¬ 
founded ; if he had ceased speaking altogether, and 
had dismissed the assembly, some mischief might have 
been avoided or delayed; but unluckily he went on 
to speak about the obligation the house lay under of 
feeding and supporting the Saxon lords and warriors 
in the Camp of Refuge, about his general administra¬ 
tion of the revenues of the abbey, and about other 
matters which had nothing to do with the Salernitan 
or the foul charges brought against him; and, saying 
that these were things to be discussed in a chapter 
of the whole house, and that if it could be proved 
that in any of these things he had wilfully done amiss 
or acted upon a selfish motive, he would readily resign 
mitre and crozier and return to the lowliest condition 
of a cloister monk, he quitted the hall, beckoning 
Girolamo to follow him, and leaving the monks 
together to be wrought upon by the craft and malice 
and treachery of the prior and the chamberlain, who 
had sold their souls not to one devil but to two—the 
demon of lucre and the demon of ambition and pride. 


MONKS OF ELY COMPLAIN AND PLOT 315 

As soon as he was out of the hall, the prior put his 
evil face under the cowl of the chamberlain, and 
whispered, ‘ Brother, it was our good fortune that put 
the word in his mouth ! We will soon call a chapter 
and depose him from his authority. Our task will 
then be easy; but as long as he is abbat many timid 
minds will fear him.’ 

‘ But, whispered the chamberlain in return, 'we 
must first of all shake the faith which too many here 
present have put in his words, and in the protesta¬ 
tions of Girolamo.’ 

‘The logic of hunger will aid us,’ said the prior, 
‘and so will the promptings of fear: there is not a 
measure of wheat in Ely, and the report hath been 
well spread that the Normans intend to begin their 
attack very soon, and to put every monk to the sword 
that shall not have previously submitted. To-morrow 
Hereward goes upon some desperate expedition to 
try to get us corn and wine : he cannot, and will not 
succeed; and, while he is absent, we can report of 
him and his expedition as we list.’ 

f ’Tis well imagined,’ said the chamberlain in 
another whisper; f but we must undo the effect of 
that devil Girolamo’s speech, and prepare the minds 
of the monks for the work we would have them do.’ 

While the prior and the chamberlain were thus 
whispering together, divers of the old monks, who 
loved not their faction and who had grown weary of 
this long sitting, quitted the hall without leaving the 
mantle of their wisdom and experience behind them; 
and after their departure the prior and his faction 
so perplexed the dull wits of the honester part of the 
community, that they again began to believe that 
the Salernitan was a necromancer and the abbat his 
fautor, that there was no hope of getting corn or 





316 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


wine unless they submitted to Duke William, and 
that if they did not submit they would all be mur- 
thered by the Normans. 

They also spoke, and at great length, of the priva¬ 
tions they had undergone ever since the beginning of 
the war. 

‘Yea! how long and how manifold have been our 
sufferings,’ said the sub-sacrist. ‘When this accursed 
Camp first began to be formed, was not our house 
entirely filled with guests ? Did they not seize upon 
our hall, nay, even upon our kitchen ? And were not 
we of the convent obliged to take our meals in the 
dormitory, as well on flesh days as on fish-days ? 
Were not all open spaces in the monastery crowded, 
so that the abbey looked more like a fair than a house 
of religion ? Was not the grass-plot of the cloisters 
so trampled down by the feet of profane fighting-men 
that no vestige of green was to be seen upon it ? 
And though most of these guests be now gone into 
the Camp, because there is little left here for them to 
devour, do not the cellars, the store-houses, the 
kitchen, and every part of the house speak of their 
having been here, and of the poverty and disorder in 
which they have left us ? ’ 

‘Ay/ said the refectorarius, ‘wonderful hath been 
the waste ! The revenue of the abbat, the common 
property of the house, and the incomings allotted to 
the several officials to enable them to bear the charges 
and do the duties of their offices, have all been 
anticipated and consumed ! And let our improvident 
abbat tell me how I am to find that which I am 
bound to provide for the whole convent, to wit, pots, 
noggins, cups, table-cloths, mats, basons, double-cloths, 
candlesticks, towels, plates, saltcellars, silver plates 
wherewith to mend the cups that be broken, and the 


MONKS OF ELY COMPLAIN AND PLOT 317 

like; besides furnishing three times in the year, to 
wit, at All Saints, Christmas, and Easter, five burthens 
of straw to put under the feet of the monks in the 
refectory, and five burthens of rushes and hay where¬ 
with to strew the hall ? * 

f And I,’ quoth the cellarius, f how am I to be 
father unto the whole convent inasmuch as meat and 
drink be concerned, when I have not a penny left to 
spend in township or market ? By the rules of the 
Order, Statutis Ordinis, when any monk at table asks 
me for bread or for beer, in reason, I am to give it 
him; but how am I to give without the wherewithal?’ 

f And 1/ said the chamberlain, c how am I to find, 
for both monks and novices, gowns and garters, half 
socks and whole socks, and bed and bedding, and 
linsey-woolsey for sheets and shirts, and knives, and 
razors, and combs, in order that the convent go clean 
and cleanly shaved ? Ay, tell me how I am to 
change the straw of the beds, provide baths for the 
refreshment of the bodies of the monks, to find shoes 
for the horses and spurs for the monks when they are 
sent travelling, to keep and entertain two bathers and 
four tailors, when Abbat Thurstan hath taken mine all 
or hath forced me to give it to laymen and strangers 
and Norwich Jews? Let our universal poverty say 
whether this hath been a misgoverned house! 
Brothers, judge for yourselves whether Thurstan, who 
hath brought down all this ruin upon us, ought to be 
allowed to rule over us ! ’ 

The crafty prior said in a quieter tone of voice, 
* For my part, I will not now dwell upon these 
temporal evils, albeit they are hard for men in the 
flesh to bear; but I would bid the convent take heed 
lest one and all they incur the sentence of excom¬ 
munication by the Pope himself. It is now quite 


318 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


clear that Pope Gregory wills that William the 
Norman shall be King of England, and that the 
English Church, with all English houses of religion, 
shall submit to him, and take their instructions from 
Archbishop Lanfranc.’ 

When the meeting in the hall broke up, the cham¬ 
berlain said to the prior, ‘ We shall yet have the 
pleasure of burning Girolamo as a necromancer! ’ 

‘An he be not the Jew that cannot die/ quoth the 
prior. 

When the Salernitan reached the Camp that even¬ 
ing he said to the Lord of Brunn, ‘Certes the monks 
of Ely will no longer say I am a wizard; but there 
be traitors among them, and much do I fear that 
their rebellious stomachs will make traitors of them 
all!’ 

‘Against that must we provide/ quoth the Lord 
Here ward ; ‘ to-morrow we must go get them corn 
and wine from the Normans. Our stratagem is well 
laid, but we must die rather than fail. So good night, 
Girolamo, and to our tents and sheepskins.’ 


CHAPTER XXII 


HEREWARD BRINGS CORN AND WINE TO ELY 

There was no cloister monk of Ely that better knew 
the legends of the house than Elfric; for his father, 
Goodman Hugh, who had dwelt by Saint Ovin’s cross, 
and his father’s father who had dwelt in the same 
place, had been great fenners and fowlers and gossips, 
and had hawked with the best of the abbats and 
monks, and had stored their memories with the 
history of the abbey and the saints of Ely, and had 
amused and sanctified the long winter-nights, when 
the fire of wood mixed with peat burned brightly on 
their hearth, by relating to little Elfric all the legends 
that they knew. Now there was one of these which 
had made a profound impression upon Elfric’s mind, 
which, by nature, loved adventure and ingenious 
stratagem. It was a short tale, and simple withal 
and easy to tell. 

Saint Withburga, the fourth in order of the four 
great female saints that were and are the ornaments 
and shining lights of the great house, did not live 
and die as her sister Saint Etheldreda had done, at 
Ely, and as Ladie Abbess. In her infancy she was 
sent to nurse at a village called Holkham, belonging 
to the king her father, Anna, king of the East Angles. 
In this place she lived many years, whence the village 

of Holkham was sometimes called Withburgstowe, 

319 


320 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


and a church was built there in memory of her. On 
the death of the king her father, which befel in the 
year of grace six hundred and fifty-four, Withburga 
removed from Holkham to Dereham, another village 
in the country of East Anglia; and here, affecting 
a retired and religious life, she founded a monastery 
of nuns, over which she presided for many years. 
Peaceful and holy was her life, and blessed was her 
end. When she died, they buried her there, in the 
churchyard at Dereham. And lo! after many more 
years had passed, and the other tenants of this 
churchyard and even those that had been buried long 
after had mouldered into dust, the grave of With¬ 
burga being opened, her body was found entire and 
without the slightest sign of corruption! Ay, there 
she lay in her shroud and coffin, with her hands 
crossed upon her breast, and with her little crucifix 
of silver lying upon her breast, even as she had lain 
on the bier on the day of her death so many, many 
years before. The saintly incorruptible body w r as 
forthwith removed into the church, where it was 
preserved with great care and devotion by the good 
people of Dereham, and it continued there, not with¬ 
out manifold miracles, until the time of that pious 
monarch King Edgar, who restored the monastery 
at Ely, which the Danes had burned, and gave the 
house that precious charter which hath been named 
before as not being given privately and in a corner, 
but in the most public manner and under the canopy 
of heaven. Now, in restoring the abbey of Ely to 
its pristine splendour, and in augmenting the number 
of the brotherhood, it behoved the king to increase 
the lands and domains of the house; and, conform¬ 
ably, the pious Edgar (may all his sins be forgiven 
for the good he did the Church !) conferred on the 


HEREWARD BRINGS CORN TO ELY 321 

abbey of Ely and the village of Dereham, with all its 
demesnes and appendages, and with the church 
wherein the body of the virgin Saint Withburga was 
preserved and venerated by the people of Dereham 
and by all the good Saxon people round about. Now 
the Lord Abbat of that day, having the grant of 
Dereham and all that appertained to it, could not 
feel otherwise than very desirous of getting possession 
of the body of the saint in order to translate it to 
Ely and there place it by the side of the body and 
shrine of the blessed Etheldreda. The saintly virgin 
sisters had been separated in their lives and ought to 
be united in death; Ely abbey could offer a more 
noble shrine than the small dependent church at 
Dereham; it was proper too, and likewise was it 
profitable, that the pilgrims and devotees to their 
four female saints of East Anglia should always 
come to Ely instead of going sundry times a-year to 
Dereham, as had been the custom, and that all the 
four shrines should be under one roof, and the 
contents of the shrine-boxes poured into one common 
treasury. All this had been laid before the king; 
and the pious Edgar, who never meant that others 
should keep what he had bestowed upon his beloved 
house of Ely, had given his royal licence for the 
translation of the body of Saint Withburga to the 
abbey. But the Lord Abbat, being a prudent and 
cautelous man, and taking counsel of his brother the 
Bishop of Winchester and of other wise and peace- 
loving men, came to this wise conclusion: That, 
inasmuch as it was not likely that the people of 
Dereham and that vicinage would part with so valu¬ 
able a treasure without resistance, if the intended 
translation should be made publicly known to them, 
it would be expedient and commendable, and accor- 


x 


322 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


dant with the peaceable character of monks, to steal 
away the body privately, and to admit none but a few 
of the most active and prudent of the cloister monks 
of Ely into the secret beforehand. Accordingly no 
notice was given to the hinds and in-dwellers at 
Dereham, nor was there any mention made of the 
great matter outside of the Aula Magna of Ely 
Abbey; and on the day appointed the Lord Abbat 
and some of the most active and prudent of the 
monks, attended by the sturdiest loaf-eaters of the 
abbey, all well armed, and after hearing mass in the 
abbey church, set out on their journey to steal the 
body of the saint; and on their arrival at Dereham 
they were received with great respect by the inhabi¬ 
tants, who thought that they had come simply to 
take possession of the place in virtue of the king’s 
charter and donation, and who suspected no further 
design. The Lord Abbat, as lord and proprietor and 
chief, temporal as well as spiritual, held a court for 
the administration of justice in the manner usual 
with bishops and abbats, and according to the wise 
and good laws of our Saxon kings. And after this 
public court of justice, wherein such as had stolen 
their neighbours’ goods were condemned to make bot, 
the bountiful Lord Abbat bade the good people of 
Dereham to a feast. And while the good folk of 
Dereham were eating and drinking, and making 
merry, and were thinking of nought but the good 
meat and abundant drink before them, the sturdy 
loaf-eaters from Ely, unwatched and unnoticed, and 
working in great stillness, were making those pre¬ 
parations for the translation which they had been 
ordered to make. And, at the time pre-concerted 
and fixed, my Lord Abbat and his active and prudent 
monks took occasion to withdraw from the carousing 





HEREWARD BRINGS CORN TO ELY 323 

company in the hall, and immediately repaired to 
the church under colour of performing their regular 
devotions. But they left the service of nones unsaid 
for that day, taking no heed of the canonical hours, 
but getting all things ready for the happy and peace¬ 
ful translation. After a time the abbat and his 
prudent monks returned to the company and caused 
more drink to be brought into the hall, still further 
to celebrate the happy day of his lordship’s taking 
possession. The whole day having been spent in 
feasting and drinking, and dark night coming on 
apace, the company retired by degrees, every man to 
his own house or hut, his home or present resting 
place; and thereupon the monks went again to the 
church, opened the tomb (of which the fastenings had 
been forced), opened the coffin, and devoutly inspected 
the body of Saint Withburga, and having inspected 
and revered it they closed up the coffin again, and 
got everything in readiness for carrying it off. About 
the middle of the night, or between the third and 
fourth watch, when the matutina or lauds are begun 
to be sung, the coffin in which the body of the saint 
was inclosed was put upon the shoulders of the 
active and prudent monks, who forthwith conveyed 
it with great haste and without any noise-making to 
a wheeled car which had been provided for that pur¬ 
pose. The coffin was put into the car, the servants 
of the abbat were placed as guards round about the 
car to defend it, the Lord Abbat and the monks 
followed the car in processional order, other well- 
armed loaf-eaters followed the abbat and the monks; 
and in this order they set forward for Brandon. The 
journey was long and anxious, but when they came 
to the village of Brandon and to the bank of the 
river which leads towards the house of Ely, they 


324 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


found ready and waiting for them the boats which 
the abbat had commanded, and immediately embark¬ 
ing with their precious treasure they hoisted sail and 
made ply their oars at the same time. In the mean¬ 
while the men of Dereham, having recovered from 
the deep sleep and the confusion of ideas which are 
brought on by much strong drink, had discovered 
that the monks of Ely had stolen the body of saint 
Withburga. Hullulu ! never was such noise heard in 
so small a place before. Every man, woman, and 
child in Dereham was roused, and ran shrieking to 
the empty tomb in the church, and at the sound of 
the horn, all the people from all the hamlets and 
homesteads near unto the pleasant hill of Dereham 
came trooping in with bills and staves, not knowing 
what had happened, but fancying that the fiery Dane 
was come again. But when they saw or were told 
about the empty tomb, the people all shouted, f Who 
hath done this deed? Who hath stolen the body of 
our saint ? ’ Now no one could gainsay that the 
Abbat of Ely with his monks had done it. A serf 
who had gone early a-field to cut grass while the dew 
was on it, had met the car and the procession on the 
road between Dereham and Brandon ; and what w r as 
of more significance, the presbyter or mass-priest of 
the church of Dereham, coming to the communion¬ 
table found upon it a piece of parchment whereon 
was written these words : f I, Abbat of Ely and Lord 
of Dereham, by and with the consent and approval 
of Edgar the King, have translated the body of Saint 
Withburga, to be hereafter kept in Ely Abbey with 
increased pomp, worship, and reverence; and this, 
O presbyter of Dereham, is my receipt for the 
blessed body aforesaid.’ Then, I wis, were heard 
words of much irreverence from the ignorant and 




HEREWARD BRINGS CORN TO ELY 325 


rustical people of the place ! Some of them stopped 
not in calling the right excellent abbat a thief, a 
midnight robber, a perturbator of the peace of saints, 
a violator of the tombs of the saints ! Nor did they 
spare King Edgar more than the abbat, saying that 
although he might by his kingly power and without 
wrong grant to the house of Ely their lands and 
services, and even their church, he had no right to 
give away the body of their saint, and order it to be 
removed out of their church, wherein it had reposed 
for thrice one hundred years; and they all presently 
agreed to pursue the abbat and the monks, and 
endeavour to recover the prey. And so, arming 
themselves with whatsoever weapons they could most 
readily meet with, they all poured out of Dereham, 
and took the shortest way to Brandon. They were 
brisk men these folk of the uplands, well exercised in 
the game of bowls, and in pitching the bar, and in 
running and leaping, and in wrestling on the church- 
green ; they were light-footed men these men of 
Dereham; but although they ran their best it was 
all too late when they got to Brandon, for the monks 
had got a long way down the river with the saint’s 
body. Nevertheless the Dereham folk continued the 
chase ; they divided themselves into two bands or 
parties, and while one party ran down one bank of the 
river, the other ran down on the opposite side. They 
even came abreast of the Lord Abbat’s boats, and got 
near enough to see the pall which covered the coffin 
that contained the body of their saint; but the river 
being here broad and deep, and they being unprovided 
with boats (the prudent abbat had taken care for that), 
they could not get at the coffin or at the monks; and 
so, after spending some time on the banks shaking 
their bill-hooks and staves, and uttering threats and 


326 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


reproaches till they were tired, they gave up the 
pursuit as hopeless, and began to return home with 
sad and very angry hearts. The Lord Abbat and the 
monks of Ely continued their voyage without molesta¬ 
tion. They landed safely on the same day, about a 
mile from Ely Abbey, at the place called Tidbrithseie, 
but which men do now call Turbutsey. Here they 
were received with great joy and triumph by all sorts 
of people, who came down to the waterside, with the 
monks and mass-priests, to meet them, for all the in¬ 
dwellers of Ely town, and all the people that dwelt 
near it, were as glad to get the body of the saint as 
the people of Dereham were grieved to lose it. And 
at eventide, or about compline or second vespers, on 
this self-same day, the body and coffin of the saint, 
being put upon another car, was conveyed by land from 
Turbutsey to Ely, and into the abbey, with solemn 
procession and the singing of praises to God, and was 
then, with all due reverence and a Te Deum Laudamus 
in the choir, deposited in the abbey-church next to 
Saint Etheldreda, and near unto Saint Sexburga and 
Saint Ermenilda. Now this happy translation of 
Saint Withburga’s body took place on the eighth of 
the month of July, in the year of our Lord nine hun¬ 
dred and seventy-four. And is not the day of this 
translation ever observed as a high festival of the 
monks of Ely? Much did the Lord Abbat con¬ 
gratulate himself on his success; and well he might, 
for translations of the like kind, as well before his 
time and since, have often been attended with fight¬ 
ing and bloodshed, nay, with great battles between 
party and party, and the death of many baptized men ! 
But through the good policy and great wisdom of this 
our Lord Abbat there was not a man that had either 
given or received so much as a blow from a staff or 


HEREWARD BRINGS CORN TO ELY 327 

cudgel. Headaches there had been at Dereham on 
first waking in the morning, but these had proceeded 
only from the over-free use of the abbat’s strong 
drinks, and were cured by the fresh morning air and 
the good exercise the men got in running after 
their saint. Decus et decor , divitice et miracula omnia 
— credit, grace, and ornament, riches and many 
miracles, did the saint bring to the house of Ely! 
And mark the goodness and bounty of the saint in 
making heavenly bot to the good folk of Dereham! 
There, in the churchyard, and out of the grave wherein 
Withburga had been first buried, sprang up a curing 
miraculous well to cure disorders of the spirits as well 
as of the flesh. And have its waters ever ceased to 
flow, and is it not called Saint Withburga’s well ? 
albeit the vulgar do name it, now-a-days, the well of 
Saint Winifred. 

Now it was in thinking upon this legend that Elfric, 
the sword-bearer of the Lord of Brunn, was brought 
to turn his thoughts upon the now well-peopled town 
and well-cultivated fields of the upland of Dereham; 
and thus thinking, and knowing the store of wine and 
corn that might be had in that vicinage, he had pro¬ 
posed to his lord to make a foray in that direction, and 
to proceed, in part, after the manner in which the 
Lord Abbat of the olden time had proceeded when he 
went to steal away the body of the saint. And Elfric 
had been thanked by the Lord Hereward for his 
suggestion, and had been called into council as well as 
Girolamo, and had given many hints as to the best 
means of carrying out the good plan of robbing the 
Saxons of Dereham (who had rather tamely submitted 
to the Normans), in order to feed the monks of Ely 
and the Saxons of the Camp of Refuge. 

Because of the many waters and the streams that 


328 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 

cut up the country into the form and appearance of 
some great echec board, Duke William had not been 
able to make his line of beleaguerment quite so perfect 
and strong on this side of the fen country as he had 
done on the other sides; but he had posted a good 
number of archers and spearmen on the uplands beyond 
the fens, and between SwafFham and Dereham, and 
upon these he relied for checking the incursions of the 
Saxons, and keeping them out of countries abounding 
with supplies. Now Lord Hereward had caused to 
be collected a good number of skerries, and other light 
and fast boats even as the good abbat had done afore¬ 
time, and these boats had been sent up the river by night 
to the vicinage of Brandon, where, with the brave fellows 
on board of them, they lay concealed among the tall 
rushes. And while the Lord of Brunn, crossing the 
rivers and meres, collected a good force in front of 
SwafFham, which would not fail of drawing all the 
Norman troops towards that one point, his sword- 
bearer and the Salernitan were to make rapidly for 
Brandon with more men, and from Brandon to make 
for Dereham; so timing their movements, in small 
parties and along different paths, that they should all 
meet in the churchyard and by Saint Withburga’s well 
at midnight of a moonless night, when the town would 
be buried in sleep. 

On the day next after that on which the evil-minded 
prior of Ely had formally accused Girolamo of witch¬ 
craft, and had spoken so daringly against the Lord 
Abbat, Hereward marched from the Camp of Refuge 
with only a few men, his intention being to increase 
his strength on his march; and well did he know that 
at the sounding of his horn, and at the sight of his 
banner, the hardy fenners would follow him whither¬ 
soever he might choose to lead. The gleemen and 


HEREWARD BRINGS CORN TO ELY 329 

menestrels who sang the songs which had been made 
in honour of him were the best and surest recruiters 
for the army of the Lord of Brunn. They were ever 
going from township to township, with their voices 
and harps, or Saxon lyres. They were small townships 
these in the fenny countries, and rustical and wild. 
The fashion of house-building had little changed here 
since the days of the ancient Britons : the houses or 
huts were of a round shape, and not unlike the form 
of beehives; they had a door in front, and an opening 
at top to let out the smoke, but window to let in the 
light was there none ; the walls were made of wattle 
and dab, the roof of rushes and willow branches cut in 
the fens; but the better sort of the houses had stone 
foundations and rough stone pillars and traves for the 
doorway, the stone having been brought from the 
quarry belonging to Peterborough Abbey, or from some 
other distant quarry. Yet these poor houses were not 
so comfortless within as might have been prejudged by 
those who only saw the outside; the hides of the 
cattle, the fleeces of the sheep, and the skins of the 
deer, and the abounding feathers of the fen-fowl were 
good materials for warm covering and warm clothing; 
neither turf nor wood for firing was ever lacking in 
those parts, and the brawny churls that came forth 
from the townships, blowing their blast-horns, or 
shouting for the Lord of Brunn, or brandishing their fen 
poles over their heads, did not look as if they were scant 
of meat, or fasted more frequently than Mother Church 
prescribed. At the same time Elfric and Girolamo, 
with their party, began their devious, roundabout 
march for Brandon, being instructed to keep as much 
out of sight even of the country people as was 
possible, and to shun any encounter with the Nor¬ 
mans, even though tempted by ever so favourable 


330 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


an opportunity. Hereward had said to them, f Our 
present business is to get corn and wine for the 
abbey, and not to fight. Be cautious and true to 
time, and diverge not a hair’s breath from the plan 
which hath been laid down. Conjoint or combined 
operations fail oftener through vanity and conceit 
than through any other cause. But ye be not men 
of that sort; ye will get your stores down to the 
boats at Brandon by daybreak to-morrow morning, 
or between lauds and prime, and I shall then have 
made my retreat, and be upon the bank of the river 
between Hockwold and Brandon, and ready to give 
ye the hand if it should be needful. Elfric, mind 
keep thy swing hanger in its sheath, and think 
only of bread and wine! ’ And unto these, the 
parting words of their lord and captain, the sword- 
bearer and the Salernitan had both said, f Upon our 
souls be it! ’ And well did they redeem their solemn 
pledge. The wise monks who went to steal aw*'~ 
the body of the saint were hardly so prudent and 
cautelous. Elfric even eschewed the marvellous 
temptation of falling upon a young Norman knight 
that was riding along the high-road between Bran¬ 
don and Dereham, attended by only two men-at-arms 
and a horse-boy. By keeping under cover, and by 
creeping in little parties of twos or threes across the 
country where there w T as no cover to conceal them, 
the forayers all got safely into the churchyard and 
to Saint Withburga’s well at midnight. The Lord 
Brunn, who had not sought concealment, but had 
taken the most direct and open road, and exposed 
his movement as much as he could do, had got 
behind Swaffham by the hour of sunset, and had 
made such a hubbub and kindled such a fire in the 
country between Swaffham and Castle Acre that all 


HEREWARD BRINGS CORN TO ELY 331 


the Normans had marched off in that direction, even 
as had been anticipated. Even the young knight 
and his attendants, whom Elfric had let pass on the 
road, had spurred away for Castle Acre, which, at 
one time, was reported to be on fire. In this sort 
there was not a Norman left in Dereham; and as for 
the Saxons of the town, after wondering for a season 
what was toward, they came to the conclusion that it 
was business which did not concern them, and so 
went quietly to their beds—the burgher and the free¬ 
man to his sheets of strong brown linen, and the 
hind and serf to his coverlet of sheep-skins or his 
bed of straw. The snoring from the little township 
was so loud that a good ear could hear it in the 
churchyard; the very dogs of the place seemed all 
asleep, and there was not a soul in Dereham awake 
and stirring except a grey-headed old Saxon, who 
came with horn lantern in one hand and a big 
wooden mallet in the other, to strike upon the church 
bell, which hung in a little round tower apart, but 
not far from the church. As the old man came 
tottering among the graves and hillocks of earth, 
behind which the foraying party was all concealed, 
Elfric whispered to Girolamo, i For this night the 
midnight hour must remain untold by church-bell in 
Dereham. We must make capture of this good grey¬ 
beard, and question him as to where lie the most 
stores, and where the best horses and asses/ 

And scarcely were the words said or whispered ere 
Girolamo had fast hold of the bell-knocker on the 
one side, and Elfric on the other. The patriarch 
of Dereham was sore affrighted, and would have 
screamed out if Elfric had not thrust his cap, feather 
and all, into his open mouth. Gaffer continued to 
think that he was clutched by goblins or by devils ; 


332 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


as the dim and yellow light from the horn lantern 
fell upon the sharp dark face of the Salernitan, the 
old fellow, fortified in his belief, shook and trembled 
like leaves of the witch-elm, or more tremulous aspen, 
and nearly swooned outright. Elfric took the cap 
out of his mouth, and let go the right arm of the old 
man, who thereupon took to crossing himself, and 
muttering some fragment of a Saxon prayer potent 
against evil spirits. 

f Father,’ said Elfric, who was now holding the 
horn lantern, c Father, we be no evil spirits or goblins, 
but honest Saxons from the Camp of Refuge come to 
seek corn and wine for the good monks of Ely; so 
tell us where we can best provide ourselves, and find 
cattle to carry our store down to Brandon. Come, 
quick, good Gaffer, for the time presses ! ’ 

When the old man looked into the merry laughing 
face of the ruddy-cheeked, fair-haired sword-bearer, 
his dread evanished, for there was no believing such 
a face to belong to any body or thing that was evil. 
Gaffer, moreover, bethought himself that he had 
never yet heard of spirit, ghost or goblin, asking for 
bread and wine. In brief, the old hind was very soon 
comforted altogether, and having no corn or wine of 
his own, and no great love for those that had, he soon 
gave all the information that was demanded of him; 
and this being got, Elfric gave a low whistle, and the 
armed Saxons started up from their hiding places 
behind the grave mounds, and Saint Withburga’s well, 
and other parts and corners of the churchyard, and 
ranged themselves in battle-array, and marched into 
the one long single street of the town. The houses 
of Dereham, in this dry and rich upland country, were 
better than the houses in the fens, but still most of 
them were small, and low, and poor, and rudely 


HEREWARD BRINGS CORN TO ELY 333 


covered with thatch. Some larger and better houses 
there were, and of most of these the Norman chiefs 
and their soldiers had taken possession. The pres¬ 
byter or mass-priest and the borhman had, however, 
kept the good houses that were their own, and they 
had granaries with corn in them, and cellars holding 
both wine and ale, and barns and yards behind their 
houses, and stables, that were not empty; but these 
it was resolved not to touch, except, perhaps, for the 
purpose of borrowing a horse or two to carry the corn 
and the wine, that might be gotten elsewhere, down 
to the boats below Brandon. While Girolamo re¬ 
mained with one good part at the end of the street 
watching the road which leads into the town from 
S waff ham and Castle Acre, Elfric with another party 
of the merry men proceeded right merrily to levy the 
contribution. He began with the Norman houses. 
Here the Saxon serfs, though somewhat alarmed 
when first roused from their deep sleep, not only 
threw open their doors with alacrity, but also led 
Elfric’s people to the cellars and store-houses. Nay, 
upon a little talk with the fen-men, and after an 
agreement made between them that the doors should 
be broken as if violence had been used, and some 
resistance attempted, they threw open all parts of the 
houses, stables, and outhouses, and assisted their 
countrymen in packing up their booty, in harnessing 
the horses and asses, as well as in other necessary 
offices. Not a murmur was heard until they came to 
visit some of the houses of the freed-men of Dereham. 
These men, who had some small stores of their own, 
were more angered than comforted by being told that 
the corn was to make bread for the monks of Ely; 
for, strange and wicked as it may appear, it was 
nevertheless quite true, that in Dereham the trans- 


334 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


lation of Saint Withburga’s body had never been 
forgiven, but was still heard as a piece of cheating and 
thievery, notwithstanding the heavenly bot or com¬ 
pensation of the miraculous well, and in spite of King 
Edgar’s charter, and the subsequent approval of our 
lord the Pope, and maugre the fact obvious to all 
men that the saint was better lodged at Ely than ever 
she could have been in this little church. In truth, 
these freemen made an exceeding great clamour. 
c To the devil with the monks of Ely for us,’ said 
they. ' In the bygone times they came to Dereham 
and treacherously stole away the body of our saint by 
night, and now they send armed men to break upon 
our sleep and carry off our grain ! ’ 

Elfric bade them remember and mind that the 
Lord Abbat of Ely was lord and proprietor of Dere¬ 
ham, and that they were or ought to be his liege 
men ; and as they continued to complain, and to say 
that they wished the Normans would soon get back 
from Swaffham and Castle Acre, Elfric broke the 
pates of two or three of them with one of their own 
staves. But nowhere could these men do more than 
grumble, their numbers being but small, and the 
serfs being mostly on the other side; moreover, arms 
had they none, their friends the Normans having 
taken care of that. Having found cattle enough else¬ 
where, Elfric would not molest the mass-priest, who 
slept so soundly that he heard nothing of what was 
passing, and knew nothing of the matter until Elfric 
had gotten down to the little Ouse, or twenty good 
miles from Dereham. 

It was midnight when the fen-men arrived at 
Dereham town, and before prime they were below 
Brandon, and loading their boats with the corn and 
wine which had previously loaded a score of good 


HEREWARD BRINGS CORN TO ELY 335 

upland pack-horses, and more than a score of dapple 
asses. f This/ said Elfric, f is not a bad lift for one 
night’s work! I should like to see the face of the 
Normans when they return from S waff ham and Castle 
Acre into Dereham ! ’ 

Even Girolamo seemed merry and almost smiled, 
as he counted the measures of corn and the measures 
of wine. But hark! a brazen trumpet is heard from 
the other side of Brandon; ay, the blast of a trumpet, 
and a Norman trumpet too; and before the Saxons 
had half finished loading their boats, a great body of 
Norman cavalry came trotting down the road which 
ran along the bank of the river, being followed at no 
great distance by a great company of Norman bow¬ 
men. It was not from Dereham that these foes came 
—oh no ! the Normans who had quitted that town on 
the preceding evening to look after Lord Hereward 
had not yet returned, and some of them never would 
return—but it had so chanced that an armament on 
the march from Saint Edmundsbury and Thetford 
came this morning to Brandon and caught sight of 
the boats on the river, and of the armed Saxons on 
the bank. Some of the midnight party thought that 
it would be best to get into the boats and abandon 
the half of the booty; but this was not to be thought 
of, inasmuch as not a drop of the wine which the 
monks of Ely so much wanted had been gotten into 
the boats. Girolamo and Elfric saw at a glance (and 
it was needful to have quick sight and instant decision, 
for the Normans were almost upon them), that the 
ground they stood upon, being a narrow road, with a 
deep river on one side, and a ditch and a low, bioad, 
and marshy meadow on the other, was good defensive 
ground, for the horse could only charge upon the 
narrow road, and it would take the archers afoot some 


336 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


time to get across the ditch into the fields, if, indeed, 
the archers should decide upon adventuring on that 
swampy ground. 

‘ We can make them dance the dance we have 
given them before,’ said the Salernitan. ‘Tie me 
those pack-horses and asses tight together between 
the Norman horse and us, pile up these barrels and 
bags; leap, twenty good bowmen, into those boats, 
and ascend the river a little, and string to ear and 
take these horsemen in flank as they come down the 
road, while we meet them in the teeth with pikes and 
javelins.’ 

‘And,’ quoth Elfric, looking at the sun, ‘if we 
but keep our ground, Lord Here ward will be on the 
opposite side of the river before ye can say a dozen 
Credos—so blow ! Saxons, blow your horns to help 
that blatant trumpet in telling the Lord of Brunn 
that fighting is toward, and keep ready a few of the 
boats to waft over Lord Hereward’s force to this side 
of the river!’ 

The Saxons blew their horns as loud as they could 
blow them, meaning the blasts to be as much a note 
of defiance to the enemy as a signal to their friends; 
and the Norman trumpeter kept blowing his brazen 
and far-sounding trumpet, and the Norman cavaliers 
kept charging along the road, shouting and cursing 
and calling the Saxons thieves and cowards—which 
they had no right to do. As the enemy came near, 
the Saxons set up a shout, and the scared horses and 
asses tied together on the road set up their heels with 
such a kicking and braying and neighing as were 
never seen and heard ; and up started from the sedge 
by the river bank the score of good Saxon archers 
that had gone a little up the river in the boats, and 
whiz went their arrows into the bowels of the horses 


HEREWARD BRINGS CORN TO ELY 337 

the Normans were riding, and every arrow that did 
not kill, disabled some horse or man, the archers in 
the sedges being too near their aim to throw away a 
single arrow. The knight in command ordered the 
trumpeter to sound a retreat, but before the man 
could put the brass to his lips, a shaft went through 
his cheeks and spoiled his trumpeting for aye. But 
the Normans sliow r ed that they could run without 
sound of trumpet; and away galloped the valorous 
knight to bring up his bowmen. These Norman 
archers had no great appetite for the business, and 
albeit they were told there was a great treasure to be 
gotten, they stood at a distance, looking now down 
the road, and now down the river, and now across the 
ditch and the plashy meadows beyond it; and thus 
they stood at gaze until they heard a round of Saxon 
cheers, and the too well-known war-cry of f Hereward 
for England! * and until they saw a warlike band 
advancing towards Brandon by the opposite bank of 
the river. A cockle shell to a mitre—but they tarried 
not long then! Away went the Normans, horse and 
foot, as fast as they could go through Brandon town 
and back upon the high road by which they had 
marched from Thetford. 

' Ha! ha! ’ cried the Lord of Brunn to his friends 
from across the river; ‘ what new wasps’ nest is this 
ye have been among ? ’ 

The sword-bearer replied that it was a Norman 
force which had been marching from the south¬ 
east. 

f ’Tis well,’ said Hereward; £ and 1 see ye have 
made good booty, and so all is well on your side. 
On our side we have led the Normans from Dereham 
and th-ereabouts a very pretty dance. I drew a party 
of them after me into the fens and cut them off or 


Y 


338 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 

captured them to a man. I count as my prisoners 
one rash young knight and fifteen men-at-arms. 

< We have loaded and brought hither more than a 
score of asses and a full score of pack-horses. Shall 
we finish loading ? All the wine is here, and a good 
deal of the corn, and— ’ 

f But shall we not pursue ? ’ cried Girolamo. 

‘ Those Normans that came on so boldly are now 
running like sheep. By moving across this marsh, 
as light fen-men move, w r e shall be sure to cut off a 
part of them.’ 

f Since the corn and wine are now safe, be it as 
you please, Girolamo; but take Elfric with thee, and 
go not too far in pursuit.’ 

A light skerry was drawn from the river and laid 
across the ditch in less than a Credo; and then away 
went the Salernitan and the sword-bearer, and all the 
best archers and boldest men of their party, across 
the plashy fields ; and soon they came up with the 
rear of the flying Normans, and engaged them in 
battle on the dry road between Brandon and Thetford, 
and slew many of them, and captured many more, 
together with all the baggage and stores of the arma¬ 
ment. The short but fierce battle was over, and 
Elfric was counting the prisoners, when one of them 
after surrendering his sword, and after begging for 
and receiving quarter, sneaked out of the throng and 
endeavoured to escape by running into a thicket near 
the roadside. The Salernitan, who was resting him¬ 
self after his exertion, and leaning on the cross of his 
well-used sword, now in its sheath, saw the intention 
of the man-at-arms, and rushed after him into the 
thicket. Now that caitiff, in giving up his sword, 
had not given up a concealed dagger, and when 
Girolamo touched him on the shoulder, merely with 


HEREWARD BRINGS CORN TO ELY 339 

the point of his still-sheathed sword, he drew that 
dastardly and unknightly weapon from his breast,, 
and plunged it into the left side of the Salernitan. 
Girolamo fell to the ground with the murderer’s 
knife in his side; but in the next instant, the 
murderer was shot through the brain by a well- 
directed arrow, and as he fell, several Saxons fell with 
their swords upon him, and, in their fury at his 
treachery, they hacked his body to pieces. Yet these 
honest men, though they saw the blood was welling 
from his side, had much ado to believe that the dark 
stranger was really hurt with a mortal hurt, and could 
die like other men. It would be hard to say how 
long they might have stood looking upon him, 
stupidly, but not unkindly, if he had not said, f Saxons, 
raise my head, place me with my back to a tree, and 
go seek Elfric, and tell him I am hurt by one of his 
felon prisoners.’ 

Elfric came running to the spot with rage, grief, 
and astonishment on his countenance. The sword- 
bearer was breathless and could not speak; the 
Salernitan was already half-suffocated with the blood 
that flowed inwardly, but it was he that spoke first 
and said, * Elfric! after twenty-five years of war and 
mortal hate between me and them, the Normans have 
killed me at last! Elfric, let me not die unavenged. 
Slay me every Norman prisoner thou hast taken on 
this foul day.’ 

The sword-bearer, knowing that Lord Hereward 
allowed not of such massacres, and wishing not to 
irritate Girolamo by a refusal, did some violence to 
his conscience and sense of truth, first by nodding his 
head as if in assent, and next by saying that the 
prisoners should assuredly rue the atrocious deed 
which had been done. But these words were truer 


340 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


than Elfric had reason to think they would be; for 
while he was in the wood some of the fen-men, having 
no longer any commander with them to control their 
wrath, beat and wounded the prisoners, and dispatched 
some of them outright. 

When the Salernitan spoke again he said, f Elfric, 
leave not my body here to be tracked and outraged 
by the accursed Normans. Get it carried to Ely and 
see it interred like the body of a Christian man. And, 
Elfric, sprinkle a little holy water over my grave, 
and go there at times to say a De profundis for the 
peace of my soul! ’ 

Here the sword-bearer said he hoped the hurt was 
not so bad but that some skilful leech might cure it. 

' Alas, no ! not all the leeches between this and 
Salerno could do me any good. Dear Salerno ! shining 
bay, bright sky, blue hills, I shall never see ye more ! 
I lived but for the hope of that, and for vengeance 
upon the Normans! My life hath been a life of woe, 
but I have done them some harm, thank God for 
that! But it is over ... I grow faint. Oh, that 
some godly confessor were at hand to shrieve me !’ 

f Shall I run into Brandon and seek a priest/ said 
the sword-bearer; ‘or shall I send one of these our 
true men into the town ? ’ 

‘ No, Elfric, thou must not leave me in my last 
agony, and there is no time for sending and seeking. 
But, Elfric, undo my collar, and unbutton this hard 
mail-jacket, and bring out the silver crucifix, which I 
received from my mother, and which hath never been 
from my neck—no, not for a second of time—during 
these last forty years. Elfric, I have kissed that 
silver crucifix openly, and in despite of the accursed 
ravings of Jews and Saracens, upon the very spot 
where our Lord was crucified! Elfric, that little 


HEREWARD BRINGS CORN TO ELY 341 


cross was round my neck, held by the same silver 
chain to which my mother hung it when, sailing 
between Cyprus and Palestine with turbaned infidels, 
the bark went down in deep water, and every soul 
perished, save only I! Kind Saxon, it was my faith 
in that cross that saved my health and life in 
Alexandria, when pestilence raged throughout the 
land of Egypt, and depopulated Alexandria, and all 
the cities of Egypt! Let my dying lips close upon 
that cross:—and, good Elfric, as thou hopest thyself 
to die in peace, and to be admitted into the dominions 
of the saints, see that chain and cross buried with 
me,—round my neck and upon my breast, as they 
now are! And take and keep for thyself whatever 
else I possess, except this sword, which thou wilt give 
in my name to the Lord of Brunn. Dear boy ! the 
Normans have not left me much to give thee . . . 
but I had broad and rich lands once, and horses of 
high breed and price, and rich furniture, and sparkling 
jewels brought from the Orient by the Amalfitans! ’ 

While the dying Salernitan was thus speaking—his 
voice ever growing fainter and fainter—the sword- 
bearer gently and piously did all that he had been 
required to do, undoing the collar, and unbuttoning 
the coat of mail which the Salernitan wore under his 
loose mantle of woollen cloth, and bringing out from 
beneath the under-vest the silver crucifix, and placing 
it in the feeble right hand of the Salernitan, who then 
kissed it and said, ' Mother dear, I shall soon be with 
thee! O heavenly Mother, let my soul pass easily 
from this hapless body ! 5 

Here Elfric, who had been well indoctrinated in the 
days of his youth by the best of the monks of Spalding, 
crossed himself and said, that it was God Himself who 
had enjoined the forgiveness of our enemies, and that 


342 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


holy men had ever declared that the moribund died 
easiest when he forgave all the wrongs that had been 
done him, and died in peace with all mankind. 

Girolamo had to gasp for breath before he could 
speak ; but at length he said, 1 Saxon, I die in peace 
with all mankind, or with all that profess the Christian 
faith—save only the Normans. I forgive all men as 
I hope to be forgiven. Fiat misericordia tua, Domine; 
yea, I forgive all and die in peace with all, save only 
the detestable ungodly Normans, who have heaped 
upon me such wrong as cannot be forgiven, and who 
have belied the promises made at their baptism, and 
who be Christians but in name. Elfric, remember! 
they slew my kindred and all the friends of my 
youth, or they caused them to die in sickly dungeons 
or in exile and beggary ; they surprised and stole from 
me the young bride of my heart and gave her over 
to violence and infamy! Elfric, wouldst ever forgive 
them if they should thus seize and treat thy Mildred ? * 
Elfric shook his head as though he would say he 
never could; but albeit Elfric was not dying, he 
ought not to have done this. Girolamo’s head was 
now falling on his breast, and he several times 
essayed to speak and could not. At last he said to 
Elfric, who was kneeling by his side, ‘Tell the Lord 
Hereward that I die his constant friend, and call upon 
him to avenge my death ! Elfric, put thine ear closer 
to my mouth ... So . . . and Elfric, go tell the 
monks at Ely that I am not the Jew that cannot die! ’ 
Here the sword-bearer, who was supporting the 
Salernitan with his right arm, felt a short and slight 
shivering, and raising his head so as to look in his 
face, he saw that the eyelids were dropping over the 
dark eyes,—and, in another brief instant, Girolamo 
was dead. 


HEREWARD BRINGS CORN TO ELY 343 


The Saxons cut down branches of trees, and with 
the branches and their fen poles, and some of the 
lances which had been taken from the Normans, 
they made a rude catafalk or bier, and placing the 
Salernitan upon it, with many a De profundis , and 
many expressions of wonderment that he should 
have died, they carried him from the thicket and over 
the Thetford Road and across the plashy meadows. 
The bier was followed by the surviving Norman 
prisoners, all expecting to be offered up as an holo¬ 
caust, and crying Misericorde and Notre Dame. The 
pursuit and the fight, the capture and the woe which 
had followed it, had altogether filled a very short 
space of time; and Hereward, who had crossed the 
river with all his forces, and having embarked in the 
boats all that remained to be embarked, was con¬ 
gratulating Elfric on his speed, when he saw that 
the body stretched upon the bier was no less a man 
than Girolamo of Salerno. 

At first the Lord of Brunn thought or hoped that 
Girolamo was only wounded; but when his sword-bearer 
told him that he was dead, he started as one that 
hears a great and unexpected calamity, and he put his 
hand to his brow and said, 'Then, by all the saints 
of Ely, we have bought the corn and wine for the 
monks at too dear a price ! ’ 

Some short season Hereward passed in silent and 
sad reflections. Then approaching the bier whereon 
the body of Girolamo lay with the face turned to the 
skies, and the little silver cross lying on the breast, 
and the limbs decently composed, all through the 
pious care of Elfric, the Lord of Brunn muttered a 
De profundis and a Requiescat in pace , and then said, 
‘ Elfric, I never loved that man! Perhaps, at times, 
I almost feared him, with the reach of his skill and 


344 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


the depth and darkness of his passions. I never 
could hate the foul fiend himself so much as Giro¬ 
lamo hated these Normans ! But, be it said, his 
wrongs and sufferings have far exceeded mine. Eng¬ 
land and I stand deeply indebted to him ! ’ 

f He bade me give thee this his sword, and to tell 
thee that he died thy friend/ said Elfric. 

c There never yet was sword deeper in the gore of 
our foes,’ said Here ward; f I know he was my friend, 
and in many things my instructor, and I reproach my 
heart for that it never could love him, albeit it was 
ever grateful towards him! But, Elfric, we must 
down the river without delay, for the monks of Ely 
will be clamorous for their wine, and traitors may take 
advantage of mine absence from the camp. See to it, 
Elfric, for a heaviness is upon my heart such as I have 
never known before. I had bad dreams in my last 
sleep, visions of surprisings and burnings by the 
Normans, and now the great loss and bad omen of 
Girolamo’s death bring those dreams back upon my 
mind with more force than they had before.’ 

f I have had my dreams too of late/ said the sword- 
bearer ; f but dreams, good my lord, are to be read 
contrariwise. Let me give your lordship a slice of 
wheaten bread and a cup of wine.’ 

Quoth the Lord of Brunn, f ’Tis not badly thought, 
for I am fasting since last sunset, and the monks of 
Ely must hold us excused if we broach one cask. 
Elfric, I say again, we have paid all too dearly for 
this corn and wine.’ 


CHAPTER XXIII 

A CHAPTER AND A GREAT TREASON 

No sooner had the Lord of Brunn quitted the Camp 
of Refuge, the day before that on which the Salernitan 
was slain, than the prior and the chamberlain and 
their faction called upon the Lord Abbat to summon a 
chapter of the house, in order to deliberate upon the 
perilous state of affairs ; and notably upon the empti¬ 
ness of the granaries and wine-cellars of the convent, 
there being, they said, barely red wine enough in the 
house to suffice for the service of the mass through 
another week. Now, good Thurstan, nothing daunted 
by the malice and plots of the prior (of which he knew 
but a part), readily convoked the chapter, and gave to 
every official and every cloister-monk full liberty to 
speak and vote according to his conscience and the best 
of his knowledge. But much was the Lord Abbat 
grieved when he saw that a good many of the monks 
did not rise and greet him as they ought to do, and 
turned their faces from him as he entered the chapter- 
house and gave them his benedicite, and pax vobiscwn. 
And the Abbat was still more grieved and astonished 
when he heard the prior taking up the foul accusation 
of Girolamo which had been disposed of the day before 
and talking about witchcraft and necromancy, instead 
of propounding some scheme for the defence of the 

house and the Camp of Refuge against the Norman in- 

345 


346 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


vaders. Much did the good Thurstan suffer in patient 
silence ; but when the atrabilious prior went on to 
repeat his accusations against Elfric, the whilom novice 
of Spalding, and against himself, the Lord Abbat of 
Ely, as defensors, fautors, and abettors of the necro¬ 
mancer, and said that it was now known unto the holy 
Father of the church at Rome, and throughout all 
Christendom, that last year an attempt had been made 
to compass the life of King William by witchcraft (the 
Norman duke having only had a taste of our fen-fever, 
as aforesaid !), Thurstan could remain silent no longer, 
and striking the table with his honest Saxon hand 
until his abbatial ring was broken on his finger (a sad 
omen of what was coming !), he raised his voice and 
made the hanging roof of the chapter-house re-echo, 
and the cowardly hearts of the wicked monks quiver 
and shake within them. 

f There is a malice,’ cried Thurstan, ‘ worse than 
maleficium ! There is a crime worse than witchcraft, 
and that is— ingratitude ! Prior, when I was but a 
young cloister-monk, I found thee a sickly beggar in 
the fens, and brought thee into this house! It was I 
that raised thee to thy present eminence and illustra¬ 
tion, and now thou wouldst sting me to the heart! 
Prior, I say, there is worse guilt even than ingratitude, 
and that is treason to one’s country ! Prior, I have long 
suspected thee of a traitorous correspondence with the 
Normans, or at least of a traitorous wish to benefit thine 
own worldly fortune by serving them by the damnable 
acts of betraying thy country and this house. I have 
been but a fool, a compassionating, weak-hearted fool 
not to have laid thee fast in a dungeon long ago. 
Remember! it is more than a year since I threatened 
thee within these walls. But I relied upon the Saxon 
honesty and the conscience and the solemn oaths of 


A CHAPTER AND A GREAT TREASON 347 

this brotherhood, and so thought that thou couldst do 
no mischief and mightest soon repent of thy wicked¬ 
ness. And tell me, O prior, and look me in the face 
and throw back thy cowl, that all may see thy face ; tell 
me, have I not a hundred times taken pains to show 
thee what, even in this world and in mere temporali¬ 
ties, hath been the hard fate of the Saxon monks 
and clergy that betrayed their flocks and submitted 
to the Normans ? Speak, prior; I wait for thine 
answer/ 

But the prior could not or would not then speak. 

‘ Hola ! ’ cried the Abbat. ‘ Is mine authority gone 
from me ? Is the power I hold from Heaven, and 
from the sainted Confessor Rex venerandus, and by the 
one-voiced vote of this house, already usurped ? Is 
my call to be disobeyed ? Shall this false monk insult 
me before the brotherhood by refusing to answer me ? 
I appeal to all the monks in chapter assembled/ 

Several of the monks said that the prior was bound 
to answer the question which the abbat had put to 
him ; but the chamberlain stood forward and said with 
an insolent tone, that in a chapter like the present 
every monk might speak or be silent as he thought 
best ; that the question was irrelevant; and that, 
moreover, Brother Thurstan (mark ye, he called him 
frater, and not dominus or abbat!) had put the said 
question in a loud, angry, and unmannerly voice ; and 
was, as he was but too apt to be, in a very fierce and 
ungodly passion of rage. 

‘ O chamberlain ! ’ cried the Abbat, f thou art in the 
complot against me and thy country and the patrimony of 

Saint Etheldreda, and I have long thought it, and-’ 

f And said the chamberlain, audaciously interrupt¬ 
ing the Lord Abbat while he was speaking, f And I 
have long thought that thou hast been leading this 



348 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


house into perdition, and that thou art not fit to be the 
head of it.’ 

A few of the cloister-monks started to their feet at 
these daring words, and recited the rules of the Order 
of Saint Benedict, and called upon the chamberlain and 
upon all present to remember their vows of obedience, 
and the respect due to every Lord Abbat that had been 
canonically elected and appointed; but alas ! the 
number of these remonstrants was very small—much 
smaller than it would have been only the day before, 
for the faction had travailed hard during the night, and 
had powerfully worked upon the fear of the monks, 
more especially by telling them that neither bread nor 
wine could anywhere be had, and that a new legate was 
coming into England from the Pope to excommunicate 
every Saxon priest and monk that did not submit to the 
Conqueror. Now when Thurstan saw how few there 
were in chapter that seemed to be steady to their duty 
and true to their vows and to the rules of the order 
(promulgated by Saint Benedict and confirmed by so 
many pontiffs of Rome, and so many heads of the Bene¬ 
dictine Order, dwelling in the house on Mons Casinium, 
by the river Liris, where Saint Benedict himself dwelt, 
and fasted and prayed, when he was in the flesh), his 
heart, bold and stout as it was, sank within him, and 
he fell back in his carved seat and muttered to himself, 
f My pastoral crook is broken! My flock are turned 
into wolves! * 

But, among the true-hearted Saxon monks, there was 
one that had the courage to defy the prior and his 
faction, and to stand forward and to speak roundly in 
defence of the oppressed Lord Abbat; and when he 
had spoken others found heart to do the same; and 
thereupon the weak and unsteady part of the chapter, 
who had no malice against Thurstan, and who had only 


A CHAPTER AND A GREAT TREASON 349 

taken counsel of their fears and craving stomachs, 
began to fall away from the line where the factious 
would have kept them, and even to reprove the 
chamberlain and the prior. This change of wind 
refreshed both the body and the soul of Thurstan, who 
knew as little of fear as any man that lived; and who 
had been borne down for a moment by the weight and 
agony of the thought that all his friends were either 
arrayed against him, or were too cowardly to defend 
him. Speaking again as one having authority and the 
power to enforce it, he commanded the prior and 
chamberlain to sit silent in their seats. And the two 
rebel monks sate silent while Thurstan, in a very long 
and earnest discourse, but more free from the passion 
of wrath than it had been, went once more over the 
history of his life and doings, from the day of his 
election down to the present troublous day; and spoke 
hopefully of the return of King Harold, and confidently 
of the ability of the Saxons to defend the fen country if 
they only remained true to themselves and to the Lord 
Hereward, without plots or machinations or cowardly 
and treacherous compacts with the enemy. The Lord 
Abbat’s discourse lasted so long that it was now near 
the hour of dinner ; and, as much speaking bringeth 
on hunger and thirst, he was led to think about food 
and drink, and these thoughts made him say, ‘My 
children, ye all know that the Lord of Brunn hath 
gone forth of the Camp, at the point of day, to procure 
for us corn and wine. He hath sworn to me to bring 
us both—and when did the Lord of Brunn break his 
oath or fail in an enterprise ? I tell ye one and all that 
he hath vowed to bring us wine and bread or die ! ’ 

The door of the chapter-house was closed and made 
fast, in order that none should go out or come in so 
long as the chapter lasted; but while Thurstan was 


35 0 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


saying his last words, the sub-sacrist, who was sitting 
near a window which looked into the quadrangle or 
open square of the abbey, very secretly and adroitly 
made a sign to some that were standing below in the 
quadrangle; and scarcely had the Lord Abbat pro¬ 
nounced the word * die * when a loud wailing and shout¬ 
ing was heard from without, and then the words e He 
is dead ! He is dead ! The Lord Here ward is killed ! ’ 
At these sounds Thurstan turned as pale as a white¬ 
washed wall, and others turned as pale as Thurstan ; and 
the traitor-monks smote their breasts and made a show 
of being as much grieved and astounded as any of them. 

f Ah woe ! ’ said the Abbat, ‘ but this is fatal news ! 
What fresh sorrow is this upon me ! Hereward lost! 
He dead, whose arm and counsels formed our strength ! 
O that I had died yesterday, or an hour ago ! But 
who brings the dire news ? What and where is the 
intelligencer? Suspend this miserable chapter, and 
throw open the door that we may see and hear/ 

The sub-sacrist was the first that rushed to the 
door, and threw it wide open and called upon a crowd of 
men without to come in and speak to the Lord Abbat. 

The crowd rushed in. It was made up of hinds 
and serfs from the township of Ely, and of the gaping 
novices and lay brothers and serving men of the 
abbey; but in the head of it was an old fenner, who 
dwelt on the Stoke river between Hilgay and Down- 
ham-market, and who was well known for his skill in 
fowling and decoying birds, and for no other good 
deed: his name was Roger Lighthand, and he was 
afterwards hanged for stealing. He had his tale by 
rote, and he told it well. He was going that morning 
to look after some snares near Stoke-ferry, when, 
to his amazement, he saw a great band of Normans 
marching across the fens under the guidance of some 


A CHAPTER AND A GREAT TREASON 351 

of the fenners. He concealed himself and the Nor¬ 
mans concealed themselves: and soon afterwards 
there came a band of Saxons headed by the Lord of 
Brunn, and these Saxons fell into the ambush which 
the Normans had laid for them; and the Lord of 
Brunn, after a desperate fight, was slain, and his 
head was cut off by the Normans and stuck upon a 
spear; and then the Normans marched away in the 
direction of Brandon, carrying with them as prisoners 
all the Saxons of Lord Hereward that they had not 
slain—all except one man, who had escaped out of 
the ambush and was here to speak for himself. And 
now another fenner opened his mouth to give forth 
the lies which had been put into it; and this man 
said that, early in the morning, the Lord of Brunn, 
with a very thin attendance, had come across the 
fens where he dwelt, with a great blowing of horns, 
and with sundry gleemen, who sang songs about the 
victories of Hereward the Saxon, and who drew all 
the fenners of those parts, and himself among the 
rest, to join the Lord of Brunn, in order to march 
with him to the upland country and get corn and 
wine for the good monks of Ely. f When the Lord 
Hereward fell,’ said this false loon, { I was close to 
him, and I afterwards saw his head upon the Norman 
lance.’ f And I too,’ quoth Roger Lighthand, ‘from 
my hiding-place among the rushes, saw the bleeding 
head of the Lord of Brunn as plainly as I now see the 
face of the Lord Abbat! ’ 

The traitorous monks made a loud lamentation 
and outcry, but Thurstan could neither cry nor speak 
and he sate with his face buried in his hands; while 
the prior ordered the crowd to withdraw, and then 
barred the door after them. As he returned from 
the door to his seat, the prior said, f Brethren, our 


352 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


last hope is gone ! ’ And every monk then present, save 
only three, repeated the words, f Our last hope is gone ! ’ 
f The great captain hath perished,’ said the chamber- 
lain : * he will bring us no corn and wine ! There is 
no help for us except only in tendering our submission 
to King William, and in showing him how to get 
through the fens and fall upon the rebel people in the 
Camp of Refuge, who have consumed our substance and 
brought us to these straits ! ’ 

Many voices said in a breath that there was no 
other chance of escaping famine or slaughter. 

This roused the Saxon-hearted Lord Abbat, who 
had almost begun to weep in tenderness for brave 
Here ward’s death ; and, striking the table until the 
hall rang again, he up and said, f Let me rather die 
the death of the wicked than have part in, or permit, 
so much base treachery! Let me die ten times over 
rather than be false to my country ! Let me die a 
hundred deaths, or let me live in torture, rather than 
betray the noblest of the nobles of England that be 
in the Camp of Refuge; and the venerable arch¬ 
bishop and bishops, abbats and priors that have so 
long found a refuge in this house—a house ever famed 
for its hospitality. Let me, I say . . .’ 

Here the prior, with great boldness and insolence, 
interrupted the Lord Abbat, and said with a sneer, 
* The few servants of the Church that now be in this 
house shall be looked to in our compact with the 
Normans; but for the fighting-lords that be in the 
Camp of Refuge, let them look to themselves ! They 
have arms and may use them, or by laying down their 
arms they may hope to be admitted to quarter and to 
the Kings peace; or . . . or they may save their 
lives by timeous flight . . . they may get them back 
into Scotland or to their own countries from which 


A CHAPTER AND A GREAT TREASON 353 

they came, for our great sorrow, to devour our substance 
and bring down destruction upon our house. We, the 
monks of Ely, owe them nothing ! ’ 

f Liar that thou art,’ said Thurstan, ‘we owe them 
years of liberty and the happy hope of being for ever 
free of Norman bondage and oppression. If ye bring 
the spoilers among us, ye will soon find what we have 
owed to these valorous lords and knights ! We owe 
to them and to their fathers much of the treasure 
which is gone and much of the land which remains to 
this monastery: we owe to them the love and good 
faith which all true Englishmen owe to one another; 
and in liberal minds this debt of affection only grows 
the stronger in adverse seasons. We are pledged to 
these lords and knights by every pledge that can have 
weight and value between man and man ! ’ 

‘ All this/ quoth the chamberlain, ‘ may or may not 
be true; but we cannot bargain for the lives and 
properties of those that are in the Camp of Refuge: 
and we are fully resolved to save our own lives, with 
such property as yet remains to this, by thee mis¬ 
governed, monastery. Nevertheless we will entreat 
the King to be merciful unto the rebels/ 

‘ What rebels ! what king ! * roared the Lord Abbat 
again, smiting the table; ‘ O chamberlain ! O prior! 
O ye back-sliding monks that sit there with your 
chins in your hands, not opening your lips for the 
defence of your superior, to whom ye have all vowed 
a constant obedience, it is ye that are the rebels and 
traitors ! Deo regnante et Rege expedante, by the great 
God that reigns, and by King Harold that is expected, 
this Norman bastard is no king of ours ! There is no 
king of England save only King Harold, who will yet 
come back to claim his own, and to give us our old 
free laws ! * 


z 


354 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


( We tell thee again, O Thurstan! that Harold lies 
buried in Waltham Abbey, and that there be those 
who have seen . . .’ 

f Brother/ quoth the prior to the chamberlain, 

' brother, we but lose our time in this idle and angry 
talk with a man who was ever too prone to wrath, 
and too headstrong. The moments of time are pre¬ 
cious ! Let us put the question.’ 

‘ Do it thyself, O prior/ said the chamberlain, who 
then sat down, looking very pale. 

^It is a painful duty/ said the prior, ‘but I will 
do it.’ 

And having so said, the prior stood up, right before 
the Lord Abbat, though not without fear and trem¬ 
bling, and, after stammering for some time, he spoke 
in this strain, looking rather at the abbat’s feet than 
in his face :— f Thurstan, it is better that one man 
should suffer a temporary evil than that many men 
should perish! It is better that thou shouldest cease 
to rule over this house, than that the house, and all of 
us in it, should be destroyed ! I, the prior, and next 
in authority unto thee, and with the consent and 
advice of all the chief obedientiarii of the convent, do 
invite and intreat thee voluntarily to suspend thyself 
from all the duties of thine office ! ’ 

' Chick of the fens, art so bold as this ? ’ cried 
Thurstan, * hast thrown thy respect for the canons of 
the Church and the rules of this Order of St. Benedict 
into the same hell-pit where thou hast thrown the 
rest of thy conscience ? Children ! brothers ! ye, the 
ancient members of the convent, what say ye to this ? ’ 

Three monks who had grown grey in the house, 
without ever acquiring, or wishing to acquire, any of 
the posts of eminence, to wit, Father Kynric, Father 
Elsin, and Father Celred, raised their voices and said, 


A CHAPTER AND A GREAT TREASON 355 

that such things had not been heard of before; that 
the prior, unmindful of his vows, and of the deep debt 
of gratitude he owed unto the Lord Abbat, was seeking 
to thrust him from his seat, that he might sit upon it 
himself; and that if such things were allowed there 
would be an end to the glory of the house of Ely, an 
end to all subordination and obedience, an end to the 
rule under which the house had flourished ever since 
the days of King Edgar, Rex piissimus . 

Thus spoke the three ancient men; but no other 
monks supported them, albeit a few of the younger 
members of the convent whispered in each other’s ears 
that the prior was dealing too harsh a measure to the 
bountiful Lord Thurstan. 

The prior, glad to address anybody rather than the 
Lord Abbat, turned round and spoke to Kynric, Elsin, 
and Celred: f Brothers,’ said he, ‘ ye are mistaken 
as to my meaning. I, the humblest born of this good 
community, wish not for higher promotion, and feel 
that I am all unworthy of that which I hold. I pro¬ 
pose not a forcible deprivation, nor so much as a 
forcible suspension. I, in mine own name, and in the 
names of the sub-prior, the cellarer, the sacrist, the 
sub-sacrist, the chamberlain, the sub-chamberlain, the 
refectorarius, the precentor, and others the obedien- 
tiarii, or officials of this goodly and godly house of 
Ely, do only propound that Thurstan, our Lord Abbat, 
do for a season and until these troubles be past, quietly 
and of his own free will, cease to exercise the functions 
of his office. Now, such a thing as this hath been 
heard of aforetime. Have we not a recent instance 
and precedent of it in our own house, in the case and 
conduct of Abbat Wilfric, the immediate predecessor 
of my Lord Thurstan ? But let me tell that short 
tale, and let him whom it most concerneth take it for 


356 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


a warning and example.—The Lord Abbat Wilfric was 
a high-born man, as high-born as my Lord Thurstan 
himself, for there was royal Danish and Saxon blood 
in his veins. Many were the hides of land, and many 
the gifts he gave to this community and church : my 
Lord Thurstan hath not given more ! Many were the 
years that he lived in credit and reputation, and 
governed the abbey with an unblemished character. 
Our refectory was never better supplied than in the 
days of Abbat Wilfric; and, albeit there were wars 
and troubles, and rumours of many wars in his days, 
our cellars were never empty, nor was the house ever 
obliged to eat roast and baked meats without any 
wheaten bread. It was a happy time for him and for 
us ! But, in an evil hour, Guthmund, the brother of 
my Lord Abbat Wilfric, came unto this house with a 
greedy hand and a woeful story about mundane loves 
and betrothals—a story unmeet for monastic ears to 
hear. Guthmund had paid his court to the daughter 
of one of the greatest noblemen of East Anglia, and 
had gained her love. Now Guthmund, though of so 
noble a family, and related to princes, was not entitled 
to the privileges of prime nobility, neither took he 
rank with them, forasmuch as that he had not in 
actual possession a sufficient estate, to wit, forty hides 
of land. This being the case, the father of the maiden 
forbade the troth-plight, and bade Guthmund fly his 
hawks in another direction, and come no more to the 
house. So Guthmund came with his piteous tale to 
his brother the Abbat Wilfric, who, thinking of tem¬ 
poralities when he ought to have been thinking of 
spiritualities, and preferring the good of a brother to 
the good of this house, did, without consulting with 
any of the convent, but in the utmost privacy, convey 
unto the said Guthmund sundry estates and parcels 


A CHAPTER AND A GREAT TREASON 357 

of land appurtenant to this monastery, to wit, Acholt, 
part of Mereham, Livermere, Nachentune, Bedenes- 
tede, and Gerboldesham, to the end that, being pos¬ 
sessed of them, Guthmund might hold rank with the 
prime nobility and renew his love-suit with a certainty 
of success. Wot ye well this pernicious brother of 
the abbat went away not with the sad face he had 
brought to the abbey, but with a very joyous counte¬ 
nance, for he took with him, from our cartularies, the 
title-deeds of those broad lands which had been given 
to the abbey by sundry pious lords. Yes ! Guthmund 
went his way, and was soon happy with his bride and 
the miserable pleasures of the flesh, and the pomps 
and vanities of the -world. But the abbat, his brother, 
was never happy again, for his conscience reproached 
him, and the secret of the foul thing which he had 
done was soon discovered. The brotherhood assem¬ 
bled in chapter, even as it is now assembled, denounced 
the robbery, the spoliation, and sacrilege, and asked 
whether it were fit that such an abbat should continue 
to hold rule over the house ? Wilfric, not hardened 
in sin, but full of remorse, felt that he could no longer 
be, or act as Lord Abbat, and therefore went he away 
voluntarily from the abbey, renouncing all authority. 
Yea, he went his way unto Acholt, where, from much 
sorrow and perturbation of mind, he soon fell sick and 
died: and, as he died very penitent, we brought back 
his body for sepulture in the abbey church ; and then 
proposed that our brother Thurstan should be our 
Abbat and ruler/ 

f Saint Etheldreda give me patience ! * said Thurs¬ 
tan, ‘ O, prior, what have I to do with this tale ? Why 
revive the memory of the sins of a brother, and once 
superior and father, who died of grief for that which 
he had done, and which an excess of brotherly love 


358 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


had urged him to do ? How doth this tale apply to 
me ? What have I had to do in it or with it, save only 
to recover for this house the lands which my unhappy 
predecessor conveyed away ? I have brought ye hides 
of land, but have given none to any of my kindred. 
That which hath been spent since the black day of 
Hastings, hath been spent for the defence of the 
patrimony of Saint Etheldreda, and for the service of 
the country. Have I not brought Guthmund to com¬ 
pound with me, and to agree to hold from, and under 
the abbey, and during his lifetime only, and with 
payment of dues and services to the abbey, all the 
lands which his brother, the Abbat Wilfric,—may his 
soul find pardon and rest!—alienated by that wicked 
conveyance ? and hath not the same Guthmund given 
us the dues and services? and will not the lands of 
Acholt, Mereham, Livermere, Nachentune, Bedenes- 
tede, and Gerboldesham revert to the house so soon 
as he dies ? O prior, that hast the venom of the 
serpent without the serpent’s cunning, if ye bring in 
the son of the harlot of Falaise, and if some pauper 
of a Norman knight get hold of these lands, the abbey 
will never get them back again ! ’ And as Thurstan 
said, so it happened. The demesnes were given to one 
Hugo de Montfort, and the church was never able to 
recover possession of them. 

f Brethren,’ said the prior, c I put it to ye, whether 
we be not now in greater tribulation and want than 
ever we were before ? Abbat Wilfric gave away five 
manors and a part of a sixth ; but the convent was 
still left rich.’ 

' Ay ! and the cellars full, and the granaries full,’ 
said the cellarius. 

' And nothing was taken from our treasury or from 
the shrines of our saints,’ said the sub-sacrist. 


A CHAPTER AND A GREAT TREASON 359 

f Nor was there any dealing and pledging with the 
accursed Israelites/ said the chamberlain. 

‘ Nor did we then bring upon ourselves the black 
guilt of robbing other religious houses to give the 
spoils to the half-converted, drunken Danes/ said the 
sub-chamberlain. 

‘ Slanderers and traitors all/ shouted Thurstan, 
f ye all know how these things were brought about! 
There is not one of ye but had more to do in that of 
which ye now complain than I had ! Ye forced me 
into those dealings with Jews and Danes.’ 

'Thou wast abbat and ruler of the house, and as 
such thou art still answerable for all ; ’ said the prior 
with a very insolent and diabolical sneer. 

Thurstan could no longer control his mighty wrath, 
and springing upon the prior and seizing him by the 
neck he shouted, ' Dog, I will answer upon thy throat! 
Nay, viper, that stingest thy benefactor, I will crush 
thee under my heel ! ’ 

And before the cellarer and chamberlain or any of 
that faction could come to the rescue, the puny prior, 
with a blackened face, was cast on his back upon the 
floor of the chapter-house, and the Lord Abbat had 
his foot upon him. 

The prior moaned and then screamed and yelled 
like a whipped cur: the faction rose from their seats 
and came to his aid, but as they all knew and dreaded 
the stalwart strength that was in Thurstan’s right arm, 
each of them wished some other monk to go foremost, 
and so the cellarer pushed forward the chamberlain, and 
the chamberlain pushed forward the sub-chamberlain, 
the sacrist the sub-sacrist, and so with the rest ; and 
maugre all this pushing, not one of them would venture 
to lay his hand upon the sleeve of the abbat’s gown, or 
to get within reach of Thurstan’s strong right arm. 


360 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


But the Lord Abbat cooling in his wrath, and feel¬ 
ing scorn and contempt instead of anger, took his 
foot from the hollow breast of the recreant prior, and 
bade him rise and cease his yelling: and the prior 
rose, and the abbat returned to his seat. 

Now those of the faction who had not felt the tight 
grip of Thurstan’s right hand, nor the weight of his 
foot, were greatly rejoiced at what had happened, as 
they thought it would give them a handle whereby to 
move a vote of the chapter for the forcible suspension 
of the Lord Abbat; and to this end they raised a loud 
clamour that Thurstan had acted uncanonically, tyran¬ 
nically, and indecently, in beating a monk who was 
next in dignity to himself, and that by this one act he 
had merited suspension. 

‘ Babblers and fools/ cried Thurstan, growing 
wroth again; f Fools that ye are, though with more 
malice than folly, and with more treachery than 
ignorance, it is not unto me that ye can expound 
the canons of the church, or the rules of the order 
of Saint Benedict! Was I not bred up in this house 
from mine infancy? Was I not reputed sufficiently 
learned both in English and in Latin, many years 
before I became your abbat? Have I not read and 
gotten by heart the laws and institutes? Ye have a 
rule if ye would read it ! and is it not this—that it is 
your duty to obey your Lord Abbat in all things, and 
that your abbat may impose upon each and all of ye 
such penance as he thinks fit, secundum delictum , 
even to the chastising of ye with his own hand ? 
Chamberlain! I have seen Abbat Wilfric cudgel thee 
with his fen-pole until thy back was as black as 
thy heart now is. Sacrist! thou art old now, but 
thou wilt remember how Abbat Wilfric’s predecessor 
knocked thee down in the refectory on the eve of 


A CHAPTER AND A GREAT TREASON 361 

Saint John, for being drunk before evening-song, and 
thine offence was small compared to that which this 
false prior hath given me before the whole house ! * 
The prior, who had now recovered his breath and 
removed himself to the farthest end of the hall, spoke 
and said—‘But what say the canons of iElfric?— 
“ Let not a priest wear weapons nor work strife, nor 
let him swear oaths, but with gentleness and sim¬ 
plicity ever speak truly as a learned servant of God : ” 
—and what sayeth iElfric in his pastoral epistle ?— 
“No priest shall be too proud nor too boastful. He 
shall not be violent and quarrelsome, nor stir up 
strife, but he shall pacify quarrels always if he can; 
and he may not who is God’s soldier lawfully wear 
weapons, nor go into any battle : ”—and what say the 
canons enacted under King Edgar, the great benefactor 
of this our house ?—" Let each of God’s servants be to 
other a support and a help both before God and before 
men: and we enjoin that each respect the other.’ ” 

‘ Say on,’ cried the abbat; ‘ thou sayest not all 
the canons of good King Edgar, for it ordains that 
all junior priests or monks shall respect and obey 
their elders and superiors. But I will not lose more 
time and temper in talking with thee and such as 
thou art; and since the major part of the convent 
have fallen off from their duty and the respect and 
obedience they owe me, I, Thurstan, by the grace of 
God Lord Abbat of Ely, entering my solemn protest 
against the wrong which hath been done me, and 
making my appeal to God against this injustice and 
rebellion, do here, for this time being, take off my 
mitre and dalmatic, and lay down my crosier, and 
take my departure for the Camp of Refuge, to take 
my chance with those whom ye are betraying.’ 

And so saying, Thurstan laid mitre, dalmatic, and 


362 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


crosier upon the table, and then strode down the hall 
towards the door. 

‘ Oh Thurstan/ cried the chamberlain with a voice 
of great joy, f thou hast done wisely! but it would 
not be wisely done in us to let thee go forth of this 
house for this present! Sub-prior, cellarer, friends, 
all that would save the abbey and your own lives, 
look to the door! Prior, put it to the vote that the 
house in chapter assembled do accept the voluntary 
resignation of Thurstan, and that he, our whilom 
abbat, be closely confined within his own innermost 
chamber, until another chapter ordain otherwise, or 
until this exceeding great danger be past/ 

The door was more than secured; and save only 
the feeble voices of those three old and good monks, 
Fathers Kynric, Elsin, and Celred, not a voice was 
heard to speak against these wicked proposals, or in 
favour of the bountiful Lord Abbat, whose heart died 
within him at the sight of so much ingratitude, and 
who stood, as if rooted to the ground, at the end of 
the hall near the door, muttering to himself, f Here- 
ward, my son, if thou hadst lived it ne’er had come 
to this ! Oh noble lords and knights and warriors 
true in the Camp,—no longer a Camp of Refuge, 
but Castra Doloris, a Camp of Woe,—ye will be be¬ 
trayed and butchered, and in ye will be betrayed and 
butchered the liberties of England and the last rights 
of the English church, before warning can be given 
ye ! Oh Stigand, my spiritual lord, and all ye Saxon 
bishops and abbats that came hither as to a sanc¬ 
tuary, ye have but thrown yourselves into the lion’s 
den! Hereward, dear, brave Hereward, thou art 
happy, thou art happy in this, that thou hast at 
least died like a soldier! The rest of us will die like 
sheep in the shambles ! ’ 


A CHAPTER AND A GREAT TREASON 363 

\\ hile Thurstan, a sadder man than ever was 
Marius among the ruins of Carthage, was thus stand¬ 
ing motionless, and communing with his own sad 
heart, the prior put to the vote the resolution which 
the chamberlain had moved ; and the large majority 
of the house, some being deep in the plot, but more 
being carried by the dread of the Normans and the 
dread of famine, or being thrown into despair by the 
reported death of the Lord of Brunn, voted as the 
prior and chamberlain wished they would vote. The 
prior would fain have cast Thurstan into that sub¬ 
terranean dungeon into which Thurstan had once 
threatened, but unluckily only threatened, to cast 
him; and he took much pains to show that it was 
needful to keep the deposed abbat in a place of great 
strength and security, to keep his imprisonment a 
secret, and to prevent all possibility of access to him 
or correspondence with him; but when he came to 
name the dark damp cold cells in the foundations of 
the abbey, wherein the rebellious son of an old East 
Anglian king had been immured, after having been 
deprived of his eyes, the monks testified compunction 
and disgust, and even sundry monks that had long 
been the most desperate of his faction spoke against 
the barbarity, and therefore the astute prior had not 
put it to the vote, and Thurstan was merely conveyed 
to the inner chamber of his own apartment; and 
this being done, and a strong guard being left in the 
abbat’s apartment, the monks all went to their long 
delayed dinner, and as soon as the dinner was over, 
the prior, the cellarer, the chamberlain, the sacrist, 
and a large attendance of monks and lay brothers 
went forth to complete their treason, leaving behind 
them rigorous orders that all the gates of the abbey 
should be kept closed, and that none should be ad- 




364 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 

mitted therein until they returned from Cam-Bridge. 
The way which the traitors took across the fens and 
broad waters of Ely was indirect and long, for they 
feared to be seen of any Saxon, and so shunned the 
good folk of the township of Ely, the faithful vassals 
and loaf-eaters of the abbey. Nevertheless they got 
to the causey which the Normans had made before 
compline, or second vespers, and finding fleet horses 
there waiting for them, they got to the castle at 
Cam-Bridge, and into the presence of Duke William 
and his fiercer half-brother, Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, 
two good hours before the beginning of lauds. The 
false Saxons kneeled at the feet of the Normans, 
kissed their hands—mailed hands both, for the 
bishop, heedless of the canons of the church, wore 
armour and carried arms as frequently as his brother 
the duke, and, like the duke, intended to take the 
field against the last of the Saxons, and was only 
waiting for the summons and the sign which the 
monks of Ely were to give. The compact had been 
propounded many nights before this; but now the 
duke, speaking as lawful sovereign of England, and 
the Bishop of Bayeux, speaking as one that had 
authority from the primate Lanfranc and from the 
Pope of Rome himself, laid their hands upon the 
relics of some Saxon saints which the traitor monks 
had brought with them, and solemnly promised and 
vowed that, in consideration of the said monks show¬ 
ing them a safe byway to the Camp of Refuge, and 
in consideration of their other services, they would 
do no harm, nor suffer any to be done either to Ely 
Abbey, or to any monk, novice, lay brother, or other 
servant soever of that house. Aye, they promised 
and vowed that the whole patrimony of Saint Ethel- 
dreda should remain and be confirmed to the Saxon 


A CHAPTER AND A GREAT TREASON 365 

brotherhood, and that not a hide of land should be 
taken from them, nor a single Norman knight, soldier, 
abbat, or monk be forced upon them, or enriched by 
their spoils. Aye, and they promised and vowed to 
enrich the shrines of the saints, and to restore to the 
abbey its pristine splendour and all its ancient pos¬ 
sessions, not excepting those for which Guthmund, 
the brother of Abbat Wilfric, had compounded; and 
they opened unto the delighted eyes of the prior the 
sure and brilliant prospect of the mitre and crosier. 
And upon this the false monks of Ely swore upon 
the same relics to do all and more than they had 
promised to do ; and so kneeled again and kissed the 
mailed hands, and took their departure from that 
ill-omened castle on the hill that stood and stands 
near to Cam-Bridge; and riding along the causey as 
fast as the best English horses could carry them, and 
then stealing over the waters, across the fens, and 
through the woods of willows, like night thieves that 
blow no horn, because they will not that their going 
and coming be known to honest men, they got back 
to the abbey, and went to their several cells about 
the same hour of prime on which Elfric the sword- 
bearer, and Girolamo the Salernitan, got down as far 
as to Brandon with corn and wine for the house. 

The order was again given that all the gates of the 
abbey should be kept closed ; and during the whole of 
that day, or from the rising of the sun to the setting 
thereof, no living soul was allowed either to enter the 
house or to issue therefrom. So much did the traitors 
fear lest their treasons and the wrongs they had done 
unto the good Lord Abbat should become known to 
the good folk of Ely town, and through them to the 
warriors in the Camp of Refuge. Some of the Saxon 
prelates had gone forth for the Camp several days 


366 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


before, and had not yet returned; but such as re¬ 
mained in the house (only a few sick and aged men) 
were told that the Lord Abbat was sick, and could not 
be spoken with, and that the doors and gates were 
kept closed in order that he might not be disturbed. 
Nor was this all false. Thurstan’s wrath, and then 
his grief and perturbations, had brought on a fever and 
ague, and he was lying on his bed in a very helpless 
and very hopeless state, with none to help him or hear 
him, for the sub-prior had made fast the door of the 
inner chamber, and the door of the chamber which led 
into it; and the guard w r as stationed at a distance in 
the corridor. 


CHAPTER XXIV 

t 


THE DUNGEON 

It was just before sunset of the disastrous day which 
saw the traitorous monks of Ely return from the 
castle at Cam-Bridge, that the Lord of Brunn and his 
trusty sword-bearer arrived at Turbutsey (where the 
monks of old had landed the body of Saint Withburga) 
with the corn and wine for the abbey; and also with 
the dead body of the Salernitan, which they hoped to 
inter in the abbey church-yard. Turbutsey had but 
few in-dwellers; and the poor hinds that were there 
had heard nothing of the foul report of Lord Here- 
ward’s death, which had wrought such mischief in 
the abbey. Lord Here ward, eager to be at his proper 
post in the Camp of Refuge, took the direct road, or 
path, which led thereunto, carrying with him, for the 
comfort of secular stomachs, only a few flagons of 
wine and a few measures of wheat, and ordering Elfric 
to go up to the abbey with all the rest of the provision, 
as soon as it should be all landed from the boats and 
skerries. But, before the landing was finished, there 
came down some gossips from the township of Ely, 
who reported with marvellous sad faces, that the gates 
of the abbey had been closed ever since the mid-day 
of yesterday; and that the whole house was as silent 
and sad as a pest-house, on account, no doubt, of the 

death of the good Lord of Brunn, the kind-hearted, 

367 


368 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


open-handed lord, who had ever befriended the Saxon 
poor ! Upon hearing them talk in this fashion, the 
sword-bearer came up to the gossips, and told them 
that the Lord of Brunn was no more dead than he was. 

'Verily/ said the people, 'the sad news came down 
to the township yesterday before the hour of noon ; 
and ever since then the abbey gates and church gates 
had been closed, and the township hath been in tears/ 

Now, upon hearing this strange news, Elfric’s quick 
fancy began to work, and apprehending some evil, 
albeit he knew not what, he resolved not to carry up 
the stores, but to go up alone by himself to see what 
strange thing had happened in the abbey, that should 
have caused the monks to bar their doors, and even 
the doors of the church, against the faithful. He 
thought not of the want of rest for one night, or of 
the toils he had borne on that night and during two 
whole days, for he had borne as much before without 
any great discomfort; but he looked at the stark body 
of the Salernitan, as it lay with the face covered in 
one of the boats, and then he thought of Girolamo’s 
death-wound and dying moment, and of the ill-will 
which some of the convent had testified towards that 
stranger, and of the rumours he had heard of murmur- 
ings and caballings against the good Lord Abbat, and 
he said to himself, ' My heart is heavy, or heavier 
than it ever was before, and my mind is haunted by 
misgivings. If the monks of Ely be traitors to their 
country, and rebels to their abbat, by all the blessed 
saints of the house of Ely they shall not taste of this 
bread, nor drink of this wine! And then this un¬ 
buried, uncoffined, unanealed body, and the dying 
prayer of Girolamo for Christian burial, and a grave 

whither the Normans should come not!.I 

must see to that, and provide against chances.’ 



THE DUNGEON 369 

And having thus said to himself, he said aloud to his 
troop of fenners : f Unload no more corn and wine, but 
stay ye here at Turbutsey until ye see me back again; 
but if I come not back by midnight, or if any evil report 
should reach ye before then, cross the river, and carry 
all the corn and the wine with ye deep into the fens; 
and carry also with ye this the dead body of Girolamo, 
unto whom I bound myself to see it interred in some 
safe and consecrate place; and go by the straightest 
path towards Spalding ! Do all this if ye love me and 
reverence the Lord of Brunn; and in the meanwhile 
rejoice your hearts with some of the good drink : only 
be wise and moderate/ 

And the fenners said that they would do it all, 
and would be moderate: and thereupon, leaving 
behind him the Ely gossips, and the fenners, the 
corn, the wine, and the dead body of Girolamo, 
Elfric took the road to the abbey, and arrived ad 
magnam port am } at the main-gate, before it was quite 
dark. A few of the town-folk had followed him to 
the gate, shouting with all their main that Elfric 
the lucky sword-bearer had come back, that the 
Lord of Brunn had come back, and that they had 
brought good store of corn, meal, and wine for my 
Lord Abbat Thurstan : for, upon reflection, Elfric had 
thought it wise to tell them this much. But from 
within the abbey Elfric heard no sound, nor did he 
see the form or face of man, in the turret over the 
gate-way, or in the windows, or on the house-top. 
But there were those on the watch within who saw 
Elfric very clearly, and who heard the noise the town- 
folk were making: and anon the small wicket-gate 
was opened, and Elfric was bade enter; and the poor 
folk were commanded to go home, and cease making 
that outcry. Once, if not twice, Elfric thought of 

2 a 


370 THE CAMP OF REFUGE 

withdrawing with the Ely folk, and then racing back 
to Turbutsey; for he liked not the aspect of things: 
but it was needful that he should have a clear notion 
of what was toward in the abbey, and so blaming 
himself, if not for his suspicions, for his own personal 
apprehensions, he stepped through the wicket, taking 
care to shout, at the top of his voice, as he got under 
the echoing archway, f Good news! brave news ! The 
Lord Hereward is come back to the camp, and hath 
brought much corn and wine for this hallowed house ! 
Lead me to Abbat Thurstan—I must speak with the 
Lord Abbat forthwith ! ’ 

‘ Thou mayst speak with him in the bottomless pit/ 
said the sub-prior. 

And as the sub-prior spoke, under the dark archway 
within the gate, a half-score from among the traitorous 
monks leaped upon the faithful sword-bearer, and put a 
gag into his mouth, so that he could cry out no more, 
and whirled him across the court-yards, and through 
the cloisters, and down the steep wet staircase, and into 
the cell or vault, or living grave, within and under the 
deep foundations of the abbey : and there, in the bowels 
of the earth, and in utter solitude and utter darkness, 
and with three several iron-bound doors closed upon 
him, they left him, making great haste to return to the 
refectory, and hoping that their plan had been so well 
managed that none but the desperate members of their 
own faction had either seen Elfric enter, or heard his 
shouts, or the shouts of the town-folk. 

So soon as Elfric could get the gag out of his mouth, 
and recover from his first astonishment, he began to 
think; and he thought that this was but a bad return 
for his fighting and risking death for the sake of the 
stomachs and bowels of the monks of Ely; and he 
became convinced in his own mind that the traitorous 


THE DUNGEON 


371 


monks must have made away with the noble Abbat 
Thurstan, and have consummated their treachery: 
and then he thought of his friends in the Camp of 
Refuge, and at Hadenham, and of the Lord Hereward 
and the Ladie Alftrude, and, most of all, of the maid 
Mildred ! And then there came before him the ghastly 
face of the Salernitan, and rang in his ears, like a 
knell, the words which the dying Girolamo had used 
in the morning, when speaking of the hard doom of 
his beloved ! And, next to this, he bethought him¬ 
self of the fearful legend of the house of Ely, which 
related how the blinded prince, who had pined so long 
in those dreary vaults, had ever since haunted them 
under the most frightful forms ! Yet when his lively 
fancy had brought all these things before him, and 
even when he had become convinced that he would be 
buried alive, or left to starve and gnaw the flesh from 
his own bones in that truly hellish pit, which he knew 
was as dark by day as by night, a sudden and sweet 
calm came over his distraught mind; and he kneeled 
on the cold slimy floor of the dungeon and raised to 
heaven his hands, which he could not see himself, but 
which w^ere well seen by the saints above, unto whom 
thick darkness is as bright light; and when he had 
said a short prayer for himself and for his Mildred, for 
his generous lord and most bountiful ladie, he threw 
himself along the ground, and laying his left arm under 
his head for a pillow, he made himself up for sleep. 

f Come what will/ said he, ' I have been true to 
my God, to my saints, to my country, to my church, 
to my lord and master, and to my love ! This martyr¬ 
dom will soon be over ! Not these deep hollows of 
the earth, nor all the weight of all the walls and 
arched roofs and springing towers of Ely Abbey, can 
crush or confine, or keep down, the immortal spirit of 


372 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


man! Mildred ! my Lord Hereward ! my noble lady 
and mistress ! and thou, O joyous and Saxon-hearted 
Lord Abbat Thurstan! if traitors have it their own 
way here, we meet in heaven, where there be no Nor¬ 
mans and no Saxon traitors ! ’ 

And so saying, or thinking, and being worn out by 
excess of fatigue, or rather by the excessiveness of his 
late short moral anguish,—an agony sharper than that 
of the rack, upon which men are said to have fallen 
asleep,—Elfric in a very few moments fell into the 
soundest of all sleeps. The toads, which fatten in dark¬ 
ness, among the noxious and colourless weeds which 
grow where light is not, and the earth-worms crawled 
over and over him, but without awakening him, or giving 
him any disturbance in his deep sleep. And as he slept, 
that black and horrent dungeon, in which his body lay, 
was changed, by the bright visions which blessed his 
sleep, into scenes as bright as the chapel of Saint 
Etheldreda in the abbey church, on the great day of 
the saint’s festival, when a thousand waxen tapers are 
burning, and the whole air is loaded with incense and 
with music. It was the sunshine of a good conscience 
shining inwardly. 

Now, while it fared thus with the captive below, 
much talk and discussion took place among divers of 
the honest monks above ; for, notwithstanding the 
great care which had been taken to send away the 
Ely folk, and to seize and gag Elfric as soon as he 
came within the gate, the cry of the men of Ely, and 
the shout of the sword-bearer that Lord Hereward had 
come back, and had brought much corn and wine, 
were heard in almost every part of the house; and, 
upon hearing them, the monks that were not of the 
faction grievously lamented what had been done 
against the Lord Abbat, and in favour of the Nor- 


THE DUNGEON 


373 


mans, and very clearly perceived that a trick had 
been put upon them in the report of Lord Here ward’s 
death. 

' I tell ye now, as I told ye then,’ said Father 
Kynric, ' that ye all make too much account of your 
meat and drink, and are all too impatient of tem¬ 
porary inconvenience. But what said the blessed Ethel- 
dreda ? “ The fashion of this world passeth away ; and 
that only is to be accounted life which is purchased by 
submitting to temporal inconveniences.” ’ 

'And tell me,’ said that other good old Saxon 
monk, the Father Celred; ' tell me, O my brethren, 
tell me how Saint Etheldreda fared when she was in 
the flesh, and ruled this house as lady abbess ? ’ 

'Ay,’ said good Father Elsin, 'Saint Etheldreda 
never wore linen, but only woollen ; she never returned 
to her bed after matins, which were then begun 
immediately after midnight; and, except on the great 
festivals of the church, she ate only once a day, nor 
cared nor knew whether her bread was white or 
brown.’ 

' Alack ! ’ said Kenulph of Swaffham, a cloister- 
monk who had voted for the wicked prior solely 
because the cellars and the granaries were empty ; 
' alack ! man’s flesh is weak, and hunger is so strong ! 
Saint Etheldreda was a woman, and a delicate princess ; 
but, an she had been an upland man like me, and 
with such a sharp Saxon stomach as I have, she never 
could have lived upon one meal a day! ’ 

' That is to say,’ quoth Father Cranewys, ' if she 
had not been sustained by permanent and wondrous 
miracle, for ye wis, Brother Kenulph, that there be 
ladie saints in hagiology that have lived for octaves, 
and for whole moons together, upon nothing but the 
scent of a rose. I wonder, and would fain know, 


374 THE CAMP OF REFUGE 

how much corn and wine the Lord of Brunn hath 
brought with him/ 

f Whatever he hath brought/ quoth Father Kynric, 
‘ the Normans will get it all! the prior and the sub¬ 
prior, and all the rest of the officials speak in riddles, 
but none of us can be so dull as not to see that Duke 
William will be here to-night or to-morrow morning, 
and that the prior went to invite him hither. The 
mischief is now done, and the prior is too strong to 
be resisted; but if there were but three cloister- 
monks of my mind, I would break out of this house 
in spite of the sub-prior s calls, and locks, and bars ! 
Yea, I would break out and release the brave boy 
Elfric, and away with him to the Camp of Refuge, to 
put my Lord Here ward and our other noble friends, 
and the whole Saxon host upon their guard. Ever¬ 
lasting infamy will rest upon the monks of Ely, if 
they be taken and massacred in their sleep/ 

f If/ said the monk from Swaffham, ‘ the supplies 
which the Lord Here ward hath brought be abundant, 
I would rather go and pass this autumn and coming 
winter in the fens, than stay here under the usurped 
rule of the prior, who beareth a mortal hatred against 
all of us that ever opposed him. Nay, I would rather 
continue to eat meat and fish without bread (provided 
only there was a little wine), than abide here to 
witness so foul a treason as thou talkest of. But 
prithee, brother Kynric, how much com and wine may 
a man reasonably expect to have been brought down, 
and where is it ? ’ 

Kynric responded, that he only knew that the Ely 
folk had cried, that there was good store of corn, meal, 
and wine, and that Elfric had shouted within the gate 
that there was much corn and wine. 

Father Elsin said that he had heard the cellarer 


THE DUNGEON 375 

say to the sub-sacrist, that the good store of provision 
would be at Turbutsey, inasmuch as Hereward had 
promised to land it there; and that at a very early 
hour in the morning it should all be sent for and 
brought into the abbey. 

‘In that case,’ quoth the upland monk, 'if a few of 
us could sally out before midnight, the corn and wine 
might be ours.’ 

'Of a surety,’ said Father Kynric, 'and we might 
carry it with us into the fens, which will not be 
conquered though the Camp of Refuge should fall; 
and we might share it with Lord Hereward and his 
true Saxons, and look to time and chance, and the 
bounty of the saints, for fresh supplies.’ 

' Then by all the saints that lie entombed in Ely,’ 
said Kenulph of SwafFham, ' I will break out and quit 
this dishonoured and dishallowed community! The 
porter at the great gate came like me from SwafFham; 
Tom of Tottington, the lay-brother that waits upon 
the sub-prior, the holder of the keys, was brought into 
this house by me : there be other lay-brothers and 
servientes that would do my will or thy will, O 
Kynric, or thine, Elsin, or thine, Celred, sooner than 
the will of the prior, and the rather since they have 
heard of the corn and wine! Assuredly they will 
unbar doors and break out with us when they are told 
that the store is so near at hand as at Turbutsey! ’ 

' An we could but carry off with us our true Lord 
Abbat Thurstan,’ said Father Kynric, 'it were a 
glorious deed.’ 

'But it cannot be,’ quoth Kenulph, 'for the in- 
firmarer told me anon that Thurstan is sick almost 
to death; and then he is watched and guarded by all 
the keenest of the faction, and the faction is too 
numerous and strong to allow us to proceed by force, 



376 THE CAMP OF REFUGE 

or to attempt anything save by stratagem and in 
secrecy. But, silence ! we are watched, and that fox, 
the sub-sacrist, is getting within ear-shot. So let us 
separate, and let each of us, before going into the 
dormitory, and into his cell, speak with such of the 
house as he can with entire faith depend upon. I 
will go unto the gate-keeper/ 

It was the custom of the monks to walk and talk 
in the cloisters for a space between supper and bed 
time; and the above discourses were made in the 
quietest corner of the cloisters a very short time 
before the second watch of the night. Those who 
had made them separated, and very soon after they 
all withdrew to the dormitory; and the sub-prior, as 
was the bounden duty of his office, went through the 
dormitory and knocked at every cell-door, and called 
upon every monk by name, and heard and saw that 
each monk and each novice was in his cell for the 
night. And when the sub-prior had thus fulfilled 
what was in statutis ordinis, he went to his own 
chamber, which was in the turret over the great gate¬ 
way ; and being weary, he went straight to his bed, 
first putting under his pillow the key of the gate, and 
the keys of the foul dungeon into which Elfric had 
been whirled. The prior, the chamberlain, the cel¬ 
larer, and other chiefs of the faction, sate up awhile 
in secret conference in the prior’s own private cham¬ 
ber ; but then they too separated and went to their 
beds, comforting themselves with the prospect of the 
abundance which should henceforward reign in the 
house, and of the honours and advantages they 
should severally receive on the morrow from Duke 
William for their dark treason to their countrymen. 
Being all worn out with fatigue, they were soon fast 
asleep, each having proposed to himself to rise at a 




THE DUNGEON 377 

very early hour in the morning, in order to get in 
Lord Hereward’s supplies, and to see to the proper 
decorating of the church for the reception of Duke 
William, and his brother the fighting bishop, and the 
rest of the Norman crew. Above and below, the 
whole abbey of Ely was asleep when the good fathers 
Kynric, Elsin, Celred, Cranewys, and Kenulph, with 
two other cloister-monks who had determined to flee 
from the house, came one by one in perfect silence, 
and carrying their shoes and sandals in their hands, 
forth from the dormitory, and into the quadrangle of 
the abbey, and then under the low arched way, where 
the gatekeeper, that free layman from Swaffham, was 
standing ready to unbar the gate, and where the lay- 
brother that waited upon the sub-prior was waiting 
for his order to begin. A word from Father Kenulph 
in his ear, and away went the sub-prior’s man up 
into the chamber over the gateway. And before one 
might say three credos, the lay-brother was back 
again under the archway, with the four ponderous 
keys in his hand. Then they all went into the gate¬ 
keeper’s room, where two cressets were burning 
brightly; and by that light the cloister monks saw 
that there was blood upon the heaviest of the keys. 

‘Tom of Tottington,’ said Kenulph, ‘what is this? 
What is it thou hast done ? ’ 

‘Nothing;’ said the serviens, ‘but only this: the 
sub-prior woke from his sleep as I drew the keys 
from under his pillow, and was going to cry out and 
alarm the house, and so I brained him. He was ever 
a hard master unto me.’ 

‘ Well! ’ quoth Kenulph, ‘ ’tis better that the sub¬ 
prior perish in his sins and unconfessed, than that 
we fail in our enterprise, and leave our friends in 
the Camp to be taken unawares. So, Tom of Tot- 


378 THE CAMP OF REFUGE 

tington, hurry thee down to the prison and bring up 
Elfric.’ 

The churl from Tottington grew quite pale, and 
said, f I dare not do it! I am no cloister-monk or 
mass-priest, and have no Latin whereby to lay 
spirits! I cannot adventure into the bowels of the 
earth to face the restless ghost of the blind prince 
. . . I cannot go alone ! ’ 

'Well!’ quoth Kenulph, who first crossed himself, 
c I will go with thee; so bear the keys, and I will 
carry the light, and say the prayer Ab lioste maligno 
libera nos, Domine, as we go/ 

The sword-bearer was still sleeping happily when 
the monk and the lay-brother came into the dark 
vault with the bright shining cresset; but as the light 
fell upon his eyelids he awoke, and saw Father 
Kenulph standing over him ; and then he started up 
and said, c I have been dreaming a true dream; for 
when did Father Kenulph do aught but good to 
honest man and true Saxon! Ah! Tom of Totting¬ 
ton, art thou here too ? Then shall I not be buried 
alive or starved to death ! ’ 

f Elfric/ said Kenulph, f thou art safe and free, 
so rise and follow us. But tell me, good Elfric, what 
supply didst bring to Turbutsey ? ’ 

‘ We loaded with corn and with wine a score of 
upland pack-horses, and many more than a score of 
strong asses/ said the sword-bearer. 

f, Tis well,’ quoth Kenulph, licking his lips and 
rubbing his hands, ‘’tis better than well! So follow 
me, and when thou comest to the upper regions make 
no noise, for the Lord Abbat Thurstan is deposed 
from his authority and is sick unto death ; the abbey 
is in the hands of the prior and his crew ; and we 
and a few more honest members of the house are 


THE DUNGEON 


379 

flying from it to get to the stores at Turbutsey, and to 
give warning to the Lord of Brunn, that the false 
monks of Ely have sold and betrayed him.’ 

f I thought as much as all this/ quoth the sword- 
bearer ; and without asking any questions, he followed 
the cloister-monk and the lay-brother to the gate¬ 
keeper’s chamber, praising and blessing the saints 
for this his so speedy deliverance. As he entered the 
room, reverentially saluting the other cloister-monks, 
the porter gave him his sword, which had been 
snatched from him upon his being first seized under 
the gateway. Next the stout porter took down some 
swords and spears, and fen-poles, that hung in his 
room, and armed his friends and himself with them; 
and then, in less than a Credo, the whole party got 
out of the monastery through the wicket gate, and, 
first closing and fastening the wicket on the outside, 
they all took the broad high road that leads to Tur- 
butsey. Six good cloister-monks, and ten good lay- 
brothers and servientes, were there in this company; 
but all the rest of the convent remained behind to 
await the slaughter of their countrymen in the Camp, 
to welcome the Normans to Ely, and to get from them 
—that which they deserved. Elfric and Tom of 
Tottington (an expert fenner, and much fitter to be 
a soldier than the waiting-man of a monk) presently 
quitted the road to take a rough path across the fens 
which led directly into the Camp : the rest hastened 
on to Turbutsey, and as they arrived there before the 
midnight, they were in good time to aid the true men 
Elfric had left there in getting the good stores across 
the river and well into the fens. Some of the party 
would have left the body of Girolamo behind at 
Turbutsey, or would have thrown it into the river, 
but the people said what Elfric had said to them 


380 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


concerning the dead body, and the fighting men who 
had fought the Normans near Brandon, and who had 
seen with their own eyes the Christian end the 
Salernitan had made, all declared that Girolamo 
must have Christian burial in some consecrated place 
where the Normans could not disturb his ashes. 


CHAPTER XXV 


THE NORMANS IN THE CAMP 

The Camp of Refuge, wherein the Saxons had so long 
withstood the violent threats of the Normans, was 
not in itself a very noticeable place. But for the 
army and the last hopes of England collected there¬ 
in, the wayfarer might have passed it without any 
especial observation, there being several such places 
in the Fen country, partly surrounded by embank¬ 
ments of earth, and wholly girded in, and doubly or 
trebly girded by rivers, ditches, pools, and meres. 
The embankments had been first made, in very 
remote ages, by those who first attempted to drain 
parts of the fen country; but tradition said that 
these peaceful works had been made to serve the 
purposes of defensive war, in those days when the 
Iceni stood against their Roman invaders, when the 
Britons stood against the first Saxons, and when the 
Saxons opposed the marauding Danes. The embank¬ 
ments which were made to keep out the water, and 
confine the rivers to their beds, were proper to keep 
out an enemy, even if he could reach them; and the 
fenners, who kept solely to the business of grazing, 
fishing, and fowling, knew best how to defend and 
how to stock such places. In the upland countries 
men took shelter on the high hills; but here, when 

an enemy approached, men threw themselves within 

381 



382 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


these flats and enclosures in the midst of the waters, 
taking with them their herds and flocks, and their 
hooks and nets for fishing, and their snares for 
fowling. At the first sound of this Norman invasion, 
and before any Saxon lord or knight fled for refuge 
into the Isle of Ely, the people of the country drove 
their fattening beeves into the enclosed but wide 
space which afterwards came to be called the Camp, 
but which for a long season bore rather the appear¬ 
ance of a grazing-field than that of a place of arms; 
and even when the Saxon lords and knights came 
and gathered together their armed followers on that 
green grassy spot, the space was so wide that the 
cattle were left to remain where they were, and the 
many cowherds and shepherds were mixed with the 
Saxon soldiery, each by times doing the duty of the 
other; and now, when well-nigh everything else was 
consumed and gone, there remained within the broad 
limits of the Camp great droves of the finest and 
fattest cattle. 

There was no moon, and the night was of the 
darkest, when Elfric approached the Camp, flying 
along the ground like a lapwing. As watches were 
set, and as the men were vigilant as became the 
soldiers of the Lord of Brunn, he was challenged 
sundry times before he reached his lord’s tent. Here- 
ward was asleep, but at the voice and tidings of his 
sword-bearer he was presently up and armed, and 
ready to go the round of the Camp. 

f Elfric,’ said Hereward, f if the traitorous monks 
of Ely shall have called in their own people, who 
formed our outer guard, and have given the Normans 
the clue to the watery labyrinth which has been our 
strength and safety so long, we may still hold out 
against more than one assault behind the embank- 


THE NORMANS IN THE CAMP 383 

ments of this Camp, provided only our people do not 
get panic-stricken by the suddenness of the attack, 
and in the darkness of this night. Would that it 
were morning! But come what may, there is one 
comfort: we shall have our harness on our backs 
before the fight begins ! ’ 

And having so said, the Lord of Brunn, followed 
by his sword-bearer, went from post to post to bid the 
men be on the alert, and from tent to tent, or from 
hut to hut, to rouse the sleeping chiefs to tell them 
that the monks of Ely were traitors to the good cause, 
and that the Normans were coming; and when this 
was done, Hereward, with an unperturbed spirit, and 
with all that knowledge of war which he had acquired 
beyond sea, and from the knowing Salernitan, and 
from all that quickness which nature had given him 
laid down his plan for defending the interior of the 
Camp, and appointed every chief to the post he 
should hold, speaking cheerfully to them all, and 
telling them that five years had passed since the 
battle of Hastings, and that England was not con¬ 
quered yet; and that if the Normans should be foiled 
in this attack, their loss would be terrible, their 
retreat across the fens almost impracticable. 

By the time all this was said and done it was more 
than two hours after the midnight hour, and it had 
scarcely been done ere the war-cry of the Normans 
was heard close under the south-western face of the 
Camp. By using the name of the Abbat Thurstan, 
the false prior had made the people of the abbey 
abandon the fords in that direction; and by the same 
false prior’s procurement, a traitorous fenner had 
guided the Normans through the labyrinth. But 
there was more fatal mischief yet to proceed from 
the same dark cauldron and source of evil. Some 


384 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


other traitor, serving among the retainers of the 
abbey that had been left quartered in the Camp, 
because they could not be withdrawn without Lord 
Hereward’s order set up the cry that the Saxons were 
all betrayed, and that the Normans had gotten into 
the Camp; and thereupon the poor bewildered wights, 
who knew but too well that the Norman war-cry could 
be heard where it was heard only through treachery, 
fell into disorder and dismay, and abandoning the 
post which they had been appointed to hold, and 
disregarding the voice of their commander, they fled 
across the Camp, shouting f Treason ! treason! Fly, 
Saxons, fly !’ 

The Normans began to enter the Camp in over¬ 
powering numbers; and although the first glimmer¬ 
ings of day began to be seen from the east, it was 
still so dark that it was hard to distinguish between 
friend and foe. But Hereward soon found himself at 
the spot where the danger was greatest; and the foe, 
who had not yet recovered from the dread of his 
name, halted at the shouts of f Hereward for Eng¬ 
land ! * and were soon driven out of the Camp, with 
a great slaughter. Whilst this was doing on the 
south-western side, another host of Normans, under 
the same traitorous guidance, got round towards the 
north face of the Camp, and after some hard fight¬ 
ing, got over the embankment, and into the Camp. 
Leaving a brave old Saxon earl and his people to 
keep the ground he had recovered, Hereward rushed 
with Elfric and his own choice band to the northern 
side; and although the distance was considerable, 
his battle-axe was ringing among the Normans there 
before they had found time to form themselves in 
good fighting order. But Odo, the fighting bishop, 
was among these Normans; and thus knights and 


THE NORMANS IN THE CAMP 385 


men-at-arms fought most valiantly, and held the 
ground they had gained for a long time. Neverthe¬ 
less, just as the rising sun was shining on the tower 
of Ely Abbey, Odo and his host, or such of his host 
as survived, retreated the way they had come; but 
while they were in the act of retreating, Duke 
William led in person an assault on another part of 
the Camp; and on the south-west side, the brave old 
Saxon earl being slain, his men gave way, and the 
Normans again rushed in on that side. Also, and at 
nearly the same instant of time, Norman spears were 
discerned coming round upon the Camp from other 
quarters. As he paused to deliberate whither he 
should first direct his steps, and as he shook the 
blood from the blade and shaft of his battle-axe— 
a ponderous weapon which no other man then in 
England could wield—the Lord of Brunn, still look¬ 
ing serenely, bespoke his sword-bearer, ‘ May God 
defend the house of Ely and the Lord Abbat; but the 
knavish monks have done the work of treachery very 
completely! They must have made known unto the 
Normans all the perilous passages of the fens. We 
are beset all about! But we must even drive the 
Normans back again. Numerous are they, yet their 
knights love not to fight on foot, and they can have 
brought few horses or none across the swamps. But 
Elfric, my man, thou art bleeding ! Art much 
hurt ? ’ 

Now, although Elfric had got an ugly cut upon his 
brow, he smiled, and said, ‘ ’Tis nothing, good my 
Lord : ’tis only a scratch from the sharp end of 
Bishop Odo’s pastoral crook. If he had not been so 
timeously succoured, I would have cleft his shaven 
crown in spite of his steel cap, or have made him a 
prisoner! ’ 

2 B 


386 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


When this was said, and when the keen eye of 
Hereward had made survey of the whole fields he and 
his sword-bearer, and all his matchless band, who 
had been trained to war in a hundred fights and 
surprises, rushed towards the spot where floated the 
proud banner of Duke William. They were soon 
upon that prime of the Norman army; and then was 
seen how’ the Lord of Brunn and his Saxons true 
bore them in the brunt of war. Thunder the battle- 
axes ; gride the heavy swords ! Broad shields are 
shivered, and the Norman left arms that bore them 
are lopped off like hazel twigs; helms are broken, 
and corslets reft in twain; and still this true Saxon 
band shouted, ‘ Holy rood ! holy rood ! Out! out! 
Get ye out, Normans ! Hereward for England! 
Saxons, remember Hastings! ’ Stout young Raoul 
of Caen, the page that carried the arms and the 
shield (anna ac scuta ) of the Duke, was slain by 
Here ward’s sword-bearer ; and where Raoul met his 
untimely death, other Normans perished or bled. 
Duke William shouted, f Notre Dame ! Notre Dame ! 
Dieu aide ! Dieu aide ! ’ but w r as forced to give 
ground, and the Duke retreated beyond the earth- 
raised mound or great embankment which girded the 
Camp on that side. 

f The patrimony of Saint Etheldreda is not easy to 
conquer ! We have beaten off the two brothers! ’ 
Thus spoke Elfric. 

f So far is well,’ quoth Hereward; f but what is 
this I see and hear ? What are those cravens doing 
in the centre of the Camp ? By the Lord of Hosts, 
some of them be throwing down their weapons, and 
crying for quarter! Wipe the blood from out thine 
eyes, Elfric; keep close to my side, and come on, 
brave men all! ’ 


THE NORMANS IN THE CAMP 387 


And away from the earth-raised mound, over which 
he had driven the Norman Duke, went the Lord of 
Brunn with his warrior band; and then was the fight 
renewed in the midst of the Camp, where some of the 
disheartened Saxons were using all the French they 
knew in crying, ‘ Misericorde ! misericorde ! Grace ! 
grace! ’ 

* Fools! ’ shouted the Lord of Brunn, { these 
Normans will show ye no mercy ! There is no grace 
for ye but in your own swords ! ’ And then the 
Saxons took heart again, and rallying round Here- 
ward, they soon charged the foe, and fought them 
hand to hand. In their turn the Normans began to 
yield, and to cry for quarter; but this band in the 
centre was supported by another and another; and 
soon Duke William, and that ungodly bishop, his 
brother, came back into the interior of the Camp, 
with many knights and men-at-arms that had not yet 
tasted the sharpness of the Saxon steel, and that 
were all fresh for the combat. Louder and louder 
waxed the war-cry on either side, and terrible and 
strange became the scene within the wide Camp; for 
the cattle, scared by the loud noise, and by the clash 
and the glittering of arms, were running wildly about 
the Camp in the midst of the combatants; and the 
fierce bulls of the fens, lashing themselves into furor, 
and turning up the soil with their horns, came 
careering down, and breaking through the serried 
lines of the invaders; and many a Norman was made 
to feel that his mail jacket was but a poor defence 
against the sharp horns of the bull that pastured on 
the patrimony of Saint Etheldreda. Also rose there 
to heaven a dreadful rugitus, or roaring, mixed with 
the loud bewailing and the shrieks of timid herdsmen, 
and of women and children ; and the wives and chil- 


388 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


dren of the Saxons ran about the Camp, seeking for 
a place of safety, and finding none. The Saxon 
warriors were now falling fast, but the Normans fell 
also; and victory was still doubtful, when loud shouts 
were heard, and another forest of lances was seen 
coming down on the Camp from the south ; and upon 
this, one entire body of the Saxon host threw down 
their arms, and surrendered themselves as prisoners. 

Hereward, who was leaning upon his battle-axe, 
and wiping the sweat from his brow, said to his 
sword-bearer, f This is a sad sight! ’ 

f A sad sight and a shameful/ quoth Elfric; f but 
there are Saxons still that are not craven. Here our 
lines be all unbroken.’ 

f And so will we yet fight on/ quoth Hereward. 

But the Lord of Brunn had scarcely said the words 
when a number of Saxon lords, old dwellers in the 
Camp of Refuge, and men that had fought at Hast¬ 
ings, and in many a battle since, gathered round 
Lord Hereward, and threw their swords and battle- 
axes and dinted shields upon the ground, and told 
him that the fight was lost, and that (de communi 
concilio magnatum ), with the common advice and con¬ 
sent of the magnates, they had all determined to 
surrender upon quarter, and take the King’s peace. 

Quoth the Lord of Brunn, f Ye will not do the 
thing ye name! or, an ye do it, bitterly will ye rue it! 
Your names be all down in a book of doom : the 
Normans will mutilate and butcher ye all ! Better 
that ye die fighting ! The battle is not lost, if ye 
will but think it is not. I was with King Harold at 
the battle by Stamford Bridge, and in a worse plight 
than now; and yet on that day we conquered. So, 
up hearts, my Saxon lords and thanes ! Let us make 
one charge more for King Harold and the liberties of 



THE NORMANS IN THE CAMP 389 

England ! Nay, we will make a score good charges 
ere we die ! ’ 

But the magnates would not be heartened, nor take 
up the shields and the arms they had thrown down ; 
and when the reinforced battalia of the Norman 
centre formed once more into line, and levelled their 
spears, and when the rest of that countless Norman 
host began to close round the Saxon army in the 
midst of the Camp, all the fighting men that obeyed 
these Saxon lords threw down their arms, and cried 
for quarter—for forgiveness and mercy ! 

Sad and sick was the heart of the Lord of Brunn ; 
but this lasted but for a moment, and his eye was 
bright and his face joyous as he shouted to Elfric and 
the rest of his own devoted band, £ Let the fools that 
court dishonour and mutilation, and an opprobrious 
grave, stay here and yield; but let those who would 
live in freedom or die with honour, follow me ! We 
will cut our way out of this foully betrayed Camp, 
and find another Camp of Refuge where there be no 
monks of Ely for neighbours ! ’ 

And at these good words three hundred stout 
Saxons and more formed themselves into a compact 
column, and the Lord of Brunn, with Elfric by his 
side, put himself at the head of the column, and 
the band shouted again, ‘Hereward for England! 
Saxons, remember Hastings ! ’ Then were heard the 
voices of command all along the different Norman 
lines, and from the right and from the left, from 
behind and from before, those lines began to move 
and to close, and to form living barriers and hedge¬ 
rows of lances on every side : and next, near voices 
were heard offering fifty marks of gold to the man 
that should slay or seize the traitor Hereward. But 
the Norman was not yet born that could withstand 



THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


390 

the battle-axe of the Lord of Brunn : and so the 
Norman lines yielded to his charge, and so he led his 
three hundred Saxons and more triumphantly out of 
the Camp and across the fens—yea, over rivers and 
streams and many waters, where Normans could not 
follow—until they came into a thick wood of willows, 
where they found the six good cloister-monks and the 
ten good lay-brothers who had fled with Elfric from 
Ely Abbey, and the party of true men from Turbutsey, 
who had carried with them the corn, meal, and wine, 
and likewise the body of Girolamo of Salerno. 

Loudly was the Lord of Brunn greeted by every man 
that was in the wood. The first thing that was done 
after his coming, was to bury the Salernitan. Near 
the edge of the wood, and by the side of a stream, 
the monks of Ely of the old time had built a small 
mass-house for the conveniency of the souls of some 
of the fenners, who could not always quit their fishing 
and fowling and go so far as the abbey church; and 
on a green dry hillock, at the back of the mass-house, 
there was a small ccemeterium holding the wattled 
graves of not a few of the fenners. 

‘This ground,’ said Father Celred, ‘is consecrated 
ground; the Normans will not soon get hither, and 
we will leave no cross and make no sign to show the 
stranger’s grave; and every man here is too true a 
man ever to betray the secret to the Normans.’ 

‘ And when better days come, we will provide some 
suitable monument for the stranger who died in 
fighting for the Saxon. Girolamo, thou art happy 
in that thou hast not lived to see this foul morning! 
Father Celred, fathers all, I warrant ye he was a true 
son of the Church, and died a good Christian. So 
withhold not to do the rites and give him Christian 
burial.’ 


THE NORMANS IN THE CAMP 391 

Thus spake the Lord of Brunn as he gazed upon 
the awfully placid face of the Salernitan, whose body 
lay uncovered upon a rustic bier: and the good monks 
all said that they doubted not, and would never doubt, 
the word of Lord Hereward. And the Saxon hinds, 
under the direction of Elfric, rapidly scooped out a 
grave on the sunniest side of the green hillock, on the 
side which faced the south and was turned toward the 
sunny land in which the stranger was born; and when 
the grave was made, Hereward took his own good 
mantle from his shoulders and piously w r rapped it 
round the dead body to serve it instead of shroud and 
coffin, which could not be had; and then Father 
Celred blessed the grave, and the lay-brothers laid the 
body reverentially in it; and then all the monks that 
had come from Ely said the service for the dead and 
chanted the De profundis. Next the earth was thrown 
in, and the green sods, which had been removed care¬ 
fully and piecemeal, w r ere laid upon the surface and 
joined together so as to unite and grow together in a 
few days, making the spot look like the rest of the 
sward: and thus, without mound or withy-bound 
hillock, without a stone or a cross, was left all that 
could die of Girolamo the Salernitan—far, far, far 
away from the land of his birth and of his love. Yet 
was his lowly grave not unhonoured. 

After these sad offices, Hereward and his party 
refreshed themselves with wine and bread, and re¬ 
newed their march, going in the direction of the river 
Welland and the succursal cell at Spalding. 

And meanwhile, how fared it with the Saxon idiots 
in the camp who had cast down their weapons, and 
trusted to Norman mercy and to Norman promises ? 

_How fared it ? In sooth it fared with them as the 

Lord of Brunn had foretold, and as it ever hath 




392 THE CAMP OF REFUGE 

fared with men that surrendered when they ought to 
have fought on. The conquerors, in summing up 
the amount of the harm they did to the Camp of 
Refuge, counted not the lives of the churls and serfs 
—which went for nothing in their eyes—but they put 
down that they slew, after the fight was over, of 
Saxon nobles and knights and fighting-men of gentle 
blood, more than a thousand. But happy those who 
were slain outright! A thousandfold worse the fate 
of those that were let live : their right hands and 
their right feet were cut off, their eyes were put out, 
and they were cast upon the wide world to starve, 
or were thrown into loathsome dungeons to rot, or 
transported beyond the seas to exhibit their misery 
to the scornful eyes of the people of Normandie and 
Anjou, to remain living monuments of Duke William’s 
vengeance, and to be a terror to such as presumed to 
dispute his authority. In this way some of the noblest 
of the land were sent into Normandie. Egelwin, 
the good Bishop of Durham, being found in the Camp, 
was sent a close prisoner to Abingdon, where he died 
shortly after of a broken heart. Never yet heard we 
of a fight more noble than that of the Camp of Refuge, 
while the Lord of Brunn was there and the Saxons in 
heart to fight; and never yet was there a sadder scene 
than that which followed upon his departure thence ! 
Except cattle and sheep, and armour and arms, and 
human bodies to hack and destroy, the Normans found 
scarcely anything in the Camp, wherein they had 
expected to make great booty. 

And how fared it with the guilty prior and the 
traitorous monks of Ely ? Did they profit by their 
great treason? Were peace and joy their lot when 
the blood of their countrymen had been poured out 
like water ? Did they and their house thrive after all 


THE NORMANS IN THE CAMP 393 

that torture and horror in the Camp ? Not so! not 
so ! Those who deal in treachery reap treachery for 
their reward; and all men hate and scorn even the 
traitors who have most served them. Before the 
butchery in the Camp was well over, a great band of 
Normans ran to the abbey and took forcible possession 
of it, and beat and reviled the monks because they 
did not bring forth the money and the bread and wine 
which they had not to give; and these rude soldiers 
lodged themselves in the house, and turned all the 
monks into the barns and outhouses—all but a few, 
who remonstrated and resisted, and who were there¬ 
fore thrown into that noxious prison underground 
into which they had cast Elfric the night before. 
And on the morrow of the fight in the Camp, the 
Norman Duke himself went up to the abbey with all 
his great chiefs, saying that he would pay his devotions 
at the shrine of Saint Etheldreda, albeit she was but 
a Saxon saint. And William did go into the church, 
and kneel at the shrine of the saint. Yea, he did 
more than this, for he laid his offering upon the shrine. 
But what was the princely offering of this great prince 
who ruled on both sides of the sea ?—It was just one 
single mark of gold, and that a mark which had been 
in the hands of the Jews and clipped ! And when he 
had made this splendid donation, he called the monks 
together in the hall, and told them that they must pay 
unto him a thousand marks of gold as the price of his 
pardon for the long rebellion they had been in. And 
when the chapfallen chamberlain said, and said truly, 
that there was no money in the house, a sneering Nor¬ 
man knight told him that there were Jews at Norwich, 
and that the monks must get money by pledging their 
lands and by giving bonds to the Israelites. The good 
Abbat Thurstan, being still sick in his bed, escaped 




THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


394 

the sight of much of this woe : but when the prior 
knelt at the foot of Duke William, and said that he 
trusted he would be merciful to the ruined house, and 
continue him as the head of it, and sanction his elec¬ 
tion by the brotherhood as lord abbat, the Duke swore 
his great oath, ‘ by the splendour of God’s face,’ that 
he was not so minded; and that Abbat Thurstan 
should be abbat still, inasmuch as he was a man of 
noble birth and of a noble heart. Sundry great Saxon 
lords, who had long since made their peace with the 
Norman, had spoken well for the high-born Thurstan; 
but that which decided the mind of Duke William 
was the reflection that, if so true and stout a man as 
Thurstan promised him his allegiance, he would prove 
true to his promise at whatsoever crisis ; while no faith 
or trust could be put in the promises and vows of such 
a man as the prior. And thus Thurstan was told on 
his sick-bed that his rule was restored, and that he 
should be allowed to appoint and have a new set of 
officials, instead of the prior, the chamberlain, the 
sacrist, and sub-sacrist, the cellarer, and all the rest 
that had been rebellious and traitorous unto him— 
provided only that he would promise to be at peace 
with the Normans. And, after Thurstan had been 
most solemnly assured by some of the Saxon thanes 
who came to the abbey with the Conquerer, that King 
Harold, his benefactor, was assuredly dead, and lay 
buried in Waltham Abbey, and that good terms would 
be granted to his friend my Lord of Brunn if he 
would but cease the hopeless contest, Thurstan pro¬ 
mised to live in peace and to think no more of 
resistance: and before Duke William departed from 
the house of Ely the lord abbat saluted him as King 
of England, and put his hand into his hand as a 
token and pledge that he was and would be true and 


THE NORMANS IN THE CAMP 395 

liege man unto him. It cost his Saxon heart a pang 
which almost made it crack; but having thus pledged 
himself, nothing upon earth, being earthly, would 
ever make Thurstan untrue to the Norman. 

In leaving the abbey, the Conqueror did not remove 
with him all the Normans. On the contrary, he 
called up still more knights and men-at-arms, and 
ordered them all to quarter themselves upon the 
monks, and be by them entertained with meat, drink, 
and pay, as well as lodging. The Norman knights 
and soldiers kept possession of the best parts of the 
house, respecting only the inner apartments of the 
restored abbat: the knights suspended their arms 
and shields in the great hall, where the arms of the 
Saxon thanes had lately hung, and in the refectory at 
every meal-time a hungry Norman soldier was seated 
by the side of every monk. This was a strange and 
unseemly sight to see in the common hall of so noble 
and once so religious a house; but it was the will of 
the Conqueror that it should be so, and the monks 
had brought down all these mischiefs upon their own 
heads. From the lands and revenues especially 
appertaining to Thurstan as lord abbat, the Norman 
knights were not allowed to take much; but upon 
those appertaining to the monks in common, they fell 
without restriction and without remorse, seizing a 
manor here and a manor there, and getting them 
converted into heritable property, to their heirs for 
ever, by grant and fief-charter from Duke William. 
And while so many broad hides were taken from 
them for good, the monks were compelled to pledge 
other lands, and the very revenues of the shrines, in 
order to pay the imposed fine of a thousand marks, 
and in order to find meat and drink, and whatsoever 
else w r as demanded by their rapacious guests. Sad 




THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


396 

grew the monks of Ely, and every day thinner. The 
knights and men-at-arms ever helped themselves 
first, and very often left their unwilling hosts nothing 
to eat. The proverb about the glorious feast of the 
monks of Ely seemed to have become nothing but a 
proverb, or the mere legend of a state of happiness 
which had passed away never to return. Greater 
still had been the woes of the monks if the restored 
abbat had been prone to spite and vengeance, for the 
Normans were willing to put a rod of iron in his 
hands, and would have rejoiced to see him use it; but 
Thurstan had a forgiving heart, and when he had 
deprived the worst of the officials of their offices, and 
had gotten the prior and the chamberlain removed to 
other houses far away from the Isle of Ely, he took 
pity upon all the rest of the convent, and did what 
in him lay to comfort them in their afflictions, and to 
supply their wants from his own store. Thus lived 
the monks, and thus the abbat, for about the space of 
three years : at the end of that time the good old 
Thurstan died, and was interred in the chancel among 
his mitred predecessors. And then still worse befel 
the monks; for Duke William, or his brother Odo, 
Bishop of Bayeux, brought over one of their most 
fighting and turbulent monks from Normandie, and 
made him lord abbat of Ely; and this new abbat did 
not cease from persecuting the Saxon monks until 
two-thirds of them were in their graves, and their 
places supplied by French monks. These were the 
things which befel the convent after their foul rebel¬ 
lion against Abbat Thurstan, and their fouler betrayal 
of the Camp of Refuge, 


CHAPTER XXVI 


A FIRE AND A RESCUE 

It was dark night before the Lord of Brunn and his 
party got near unto the river Welland and Spalding, 
and great had been their speed to get thither so soon. 
As they halted near the river-bank, under cover of 
some willows, they saw boats filled with Normans 
passing and repassing, and heard them hailing one 
another. In remarking upon this to his lord, the 
sword-bearer said, { Our barks on these waters have 
been overpowered! The Normans have been trying 
to encompass us by water as well as by land. No 
marvel were it to me to find them on every river 
between this and Trent or Humber; but it is not they 
that will stop good fenmen like us/ 

' Yet we be come hither in good time, for they may 
be preparing to lay siege to my ladie in the moated 
manor house. I would wager my best trained hawk 
against a kestrel that Ivo Taille-Bois is come hither¬ 
ward from Stamford to recover what he calls his 
own ! * So said Lord Hereward. 

Quoth Elfric: 'An Ivo be here, we will beat him 
and catch him again! And when we catch him, we 
will not let him go, as we did, my lord, on the happy 
day of thy marriage/ 

While they were thus discoursing with low voices 

among the willow-trees, a great and bright light was 

397 




398 THE CAMP OF REFUGE 

suddenly seen in the direction of Spalding, from 
which they were still distant some three old English 
miles. At first they thought it was but a beacon-fire 
lighted by the Normans, or perhaps by the Saxons; 
but the light grew and spread very fast, and showed 
itself as a portentous blaze, and sparks w r ere seen 
flying upwards into the murky night-air, and then a 
great body of smoke came rolling before the night- 
wind, which was blowing freshly down the river. 
Hereward uttered the name of his wife the Ladie 
Alftrude, Elfric uttered the name of Mildred, and 
both said a hurried prayer, for each believed that the 
Normans had set fire to the manor-house. In an 
instant the whole band was again in motion, rushing 
rapidly but silently along the willow-fringed bank of 
the Welland; but when they got nearer and came to 
a turn of the river, they made out that the fire w r as 
not on this, but on the other side of the river, and 
that, instead of the manor house, it must be either 
the succursal cell or the poor little township of 
Spalding that was in a blaze. And when they got 
nearer still, they saw that it was the little town; but 
they also saw that the cell was beleaguered, and that 
many armed men, carrying torches in their hands, 
were crossing the river aud running towards the 
manor-house. 

‘ Unto the blessed saints be the praise,’ said Lord 
Hereward, f but we be come just in time! My 
Saxons true, leave here among the willow's the wine 
and stores, and let us forward to the rescue of the 
Ladie Alftrude and mine infant son. Be quiet till 
you reach the end of the causey, on which they are 
gathering their force, and then shout and fall on ! ’ 

Away w r ent the Saxons among the willows and tall 
rushes, until they came close to the causey which led 


399 


A. FIRE AND A RESCUE 

from the bank of the river to the moated manor- 
house, and which was hard and dry now, although in 
the winter season it was for the most part under 
water. The Normans, who were making an exceeding 
great noise themselves, heard not the little unavoid¬ 
able noise made by Lord Hereward’s people; and 
notwithstanding the light thrown up by the burning 
town, the Frenchmen saw not more of the Saxons 
than they heard of them, until they set up their 
shouts of f Hereward for England! The Saxons to 
the rescue ! ’ And scarcely had the first of these 
shouts ceased to be echoed ere Hereward and his true 
men were upon the causey and hewing down the 
astounded enemy, of whom not a few were without 
their arms, for they had been bringing across the 
river great beams and planks wherewith to cross the 
moat of the manor-house. The Normans that were 
still on the opposite side of the river, beleaguering 
the succursal cell, came down to their boats and 
attempted to cross over to succour their countrymen 
on the causey; but Lord Hereward posted fifty good 
archers among the willows at the very edge of the 
water, and, taking good aim in the red fire-light, 
these good bowmen sent such fatal flights of arrows 
into the boats that the Normans put back in dismay : 
and the boats which had been going up and down the 
river, full of armed men, took all to flight upon 
hearing the shouts of f Hereward for England,’ and 
never stopped until they got out of the Welland into 
the broad Wash, where the Conqueror, by the advice 
of the false Danes, had collected a fleet of ships. At 
these good signs some of the town folk of Spalding, 
who had fled into the fens to escape the Norman fury, 
returned towards their burning town and threatened 
the rear of their foe ; and some other of the town 


400 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


folk, who had thrown themselves into the cell to 
assist the true monks who had driven out the false 
ones, now joined in shouting f Hereward for Eng¬ 
land ’; and getting to the house-top, assailed their 
beleaguerers with arrows and javelins, and whatso¬ 
ever else they could get to hurl at them. Thus stood 
the Norman host, part on one side of the river and 
part on the other, and no communication between 
them. Yet when those on the causey were joined by 
a great band that had been up to the manor-house, 
they were far more numerous than the Saxon party. 
With the band that came down from the manor-house 
was Ivo Taille-Bois himself; and his people shouted 
as he came upon the ground where battle had been 
joined, f A Taille-Bois ! a Taille-Bois ! ’ 

The Lord of Brunn, who had made a good free 
space with his own single battle-axe, now cried out in 
his loudest and cheeriest voice, ‘ Welcome, O Ivo 
Taille-Bois! I as good as told thee on my wedding- 
day at Ey that we should meet again! Ivo, all that 
I ask of thee now is that thou wilt not turn from me! 
Ivo Taille-Bois, this is a fair field! Here is good 
hard ground, and no fen-pool; so. Sir Ivo, stand 
forward, and let thee and me prove which is the 
better man and the better knight! * 

But Ivo, remembering still the battle of Hastings 
and the weight of Lord Hereward’s battle-axe—albeit 
it was but a stripling’s arm then wielded it—would 
not stand forward; and he only cried from among his 
men-at-arms and the knights that were with him, 
f This is no fair field, and I have no horse, and a 
knight should engage in single combat only on horse¬ 
back ; and thou art no true knight, but only a priest- 
made knight, and a rebel and traitor! ’ 

f For the last thou best in thy throat,’ quoth the 


A FIRE AND A RESCUE 


401 


Lord of Brunn. ‘I am a free and true Saxon fight¬ 
ing for his country against invaders and robbers! 
Thou art but a beast to make thy valour depend upon 
a four-legged creature! But since thou wilt not 
stand forth and try thy strength and skill with me 
here in this good space between our two hosts, I will 
come and seek thee in the midst of thy people. So, 
Ivo, look to thyself!* 

And having thus spoken, the Lord of Brunn waved 
his battle-axe over his head and sprang forward, and 
Elfric went close by his side, and the boldest of his 
Saxons followed him, shouting again, ' Hereward for 
England ! Saxons to the rescue of the Ladie Alftrude I ’ 
And so loud were these shouts that they were heard 
afar off on either side of the river, and were given back 
not only by the true men in the succursal cell and by 
the returning townsfolk of Spalding but also by the 
staunch little garrison which had been left by the Ladie 
Alftrude in the moated manor-house. The torches 
which the Normans had been carrying were all extin¬ 
guished and thrown away, and moon or star was none, 
but the ruddy flames from the burning town still gave 
light enough for the good aiming of sword, pike, and 
battle-axe. For a time the Normans stood their ground 
on the causey, and did manfully enough; but when 
Ivo Taille-Bois saw the carnage the Lord of Brunn was 
making, and saw that his battle-axe was opening a path 
through his dense phalanx to the spot where he stood, 
he bade his trumpet sound a retreat. Ivo could not 
have done a worse thing, for so soon as his men began 
to retreat they got into a panic; and while some ran 
along the causey, others quitted that road and ran into 
the fens. Nay, Ivo himself was swept from the road, 
and compelled to run for it across a broad marsh where 
there was at this season little water, but much mud. 

2 c 


402 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


Lord Hereward, who saw him go, said to his sword- 
bearer, ‘ That big bully of Angevin is not worth my 
following: go, Elfric, and bring him hither; you will 
find him somewhere there among the bulrushes. He 
will surrender; so slay him not, but bring him here 
alive, and we will keep him and teach him to lead a 
fen life.’ 

And while Elfric went in pursuit of Sir Ivo, other 
Saxons followed the Normans that were running along 
the causey and throwing away their arms to run the 
lighter, until they saw them a good way beyond the 
manor-house ; and other Saxons going into the fens 
slew many of the unskilled Normans who had fled 
thitherward and stuck in the mud. On the opposite 
side of the river the Norman force which had been 
assaulting the cell was now in full flight for Stamford : 
in all its parts the army of the viscomte was discomfited 
and shamefully routed. Deep in the mud and among 
the bulrushes, and helpless as he was when with his 
brother Geoffroy he lay floundering in the fen pool 
near Ey, Elfric and the score of merry men he took 
with him found great Ivo Taille-Bois with two Norman 
knights as helpless as himself; and upon being sum¬ 
moned by the sword-bearer and threatened by the 
Saxon soldiers, Ivo and the two knights crawled out of 
the mud upon their hands and knees, and gave them¬ 
selves up as prisoners to Hereward the Knight and 
Lord of Brunn, for Ivo could call him knight now, ay, 
knight and lord ! 

When the great viscomte and so-called nephew of the 
Conqueror was brought into the presence of Hereward, 
that merry Saxon lord could not but laugh at the woe¬ 
ful figure he made : and he said, smiling all the while, 
' O Sir Ivo, this is the second time we meet, and each 
time thou comest before me in very dirty plight! But, 


403 


A FIRE AND A RESCUE 

Ivo, the mud and slime of our fens are not so foul as 
the work thou hast each time had in hand ! At Ey thou 
thoughtest to have surprised a defenceless maiden, 
and here hast thou been coming against a young 
matron, my right noble wife, and a poor defenceless 
little township and a handful of monks. Ivo, thou art 
a big man and hast a big voice, yet art thou but a 
braggart and coward ! ’Tis well thou hast not had 
time to do mischief at the manor-house, for hadst thou 
done any, I would have hacked thee to pieces ! As it 
stands, thou art my prisoner, nor will I ever hear of 
ransom.’ 

Then Taille-Bois hung down his head, and said no 
word, except that he hoped the Lord of Brunn would 
yet remember that by marriage they were as good as 
cousins. 

The townfolk of Spalding and the true and now 
relieved monks came across the river in the boats 
which the Normans had left behind them, and saluted 
and did honour to Hereward ; nor did they forget 
Elfric, who had lived so long among them ; and as they 
as yet knew nought of what had befallen the Saxons 
that morning in the Camp of Refuge, these poor men 
were all jubilant beyond measure. 

It was not an hour since Hereward first fell upon the 
Normans in the causey, and everything that he could 
do for this night was already done. He bade Elfric 
count the prisoners and the number of the slain. 
Without counting those who had perished in the fens, 
more than two score Normans lay stark dead on the 
causey. More were wounded, but not half a score of 
Saxons were slain. The exceeding great light which 
had come from the burning town was now dying away, 
for the flames had consumed everything that was con¬ 
sumable in Spalding. But many torches were soon 



404 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


lighted, and by their light the Lord of Brunn and his 
faithful sword-bearer marched hastily towards the 
manor-house, over which their hearts had long been 
hovering; and they were followed thitherward by Ivo 
Taille-Bois and the rest of the prisoners, and by a part 
of the Saxon force, the rest of those three hundred true 
men being left to guard the river and the succursal 
cell. 

At the sound of his horn the drawbridge was lowered 
and the gates of the manor-house were thrown open 
to the Lord of Brunn; and then was there happy 
meeting in the hall with the Ladie Alftrude and the 
maid Mildred—so happy that Hereward and Elfric 
forgot for the time the shame and woe of that bloody 
morning, and the young dame and the maiden forgot 
their own late agony and danger ; nor was it when the 
ladie brought her first-born son, rosy from his sleep, and 
put him in the arms of his glad sire, and when maid 
Mildred hung upon the arm of the sword-bearer and 
called him her deliverer, and said that she would never 
more leave him, but go whithersoever he might go, 
that these sad things could be brought back to the 
mind, or that either Hereward or Elfric could recollect 
that henceforward they and those who were dearest 
unto them must lead a wandering life in the wilds and 
the fens. Nay, when a cheerful fire was lit in the 
great hall, and the tables were well spread, and the 
drinking-horns well filled, every good Saxon present 
seemed to think that this joy must last. 

Yet if, in the morning after this happy meeting, 
there came sad thoughts and many and much sadder 
recollections, there was no craven panic, nor so much 
as any visible perturbation or confusion. Vir serenissi- 
mus , a most serene and imperturbable man, was the 
Lord of Brunn, and to this high quality of his nature 



A FIRE AND A RESCUE 


405 


was mainly owing all that he had done and all that 
he lived to do afterwards. The Ladie Alftrude was 
worthy to mate with such a lord ; and their serenity 
made serene and confident all those that were about 
them. And therefore was it that when the foul 
treason at Ely was made known to all of them, and 
when much more bad news was brought in, as that the 
Normans had stormed and taken the ladie's manor- 
house at Ey and the lord’s manor-house at Brunn, and 
had been admitted again into Crowland Abbey, these 
good Saxons lost not heart and abated not of hope, but 
vowed that they would fight to the last for Lord Here- 
ward, and be true to him in every extremity. 

All things were got ready for a retreat into the 
furthest parts of Lincolnshire, or into the impenetrable 
country upon the Wash, as expediency might dictate; 
for it was thought that the Normans, being so near, 
would not delay in bringing a great army against 
Spalding manor-house, and in making the most desper¬ 
ate efforts to seize the last great Saxon lord that was 
now in arms against them. But the autumn season 
was now at hand, and it was so ordained that the 
heavy rains set in earlier than usual, and fell more 
heavily and lasted longer than common, in such sort 
that the fens were laid under water and the roads made 
impassable. And although many boats of all sorts and 
sizes were collected, they could not be used, for a fresh 
gathering on the Scottish border constrained Duke 
William to turn his attention thitherward and to 
despatch to the river Tyne and to the river Tweed 
many of the warriors and shipmen that had been 
collected to complete the subjugation of the fen 
country. When these Normans were gone, Lord 
Here ward drove their monks once more from Crow- 
land Abbey, and got possession of his house at Brunn 




406 THE CAMP OF REFUGE 

and of the stores which had been there deposited; 
and after making many good forays into the upland 
country, he brought his brave fenners back to Spalding, 
together with a good number of Norman prisoners, 
of whom some were of high degree. The poor un¬ 
housed townfolk of Spalding found shelter for the 
winter in the large manor-house and in the succursal 
cell, or in Crowland Abbey, keeping themselves ready 
to move in the spring with the Lord of Brunn and his 
warlike band. There was abundance of wine and 
corn, and meat and fish, and all good things in this new 
Camp of Refuge ; and the winter passed merrily away, 
with all due observation made of saints’ days and of all 
the feast days the Saxon Church had appointed. But one 
feast there was which was more joyous than all the rest; 
and that was given by the Lord of Brunn, ever free of 
hand and large of soul, a short time before the quin- 
zaine of the Nativity, when Elfric and Mildred were 
made man and wife. Their hands were joined by the 
same Alefricus Diaconus who had been Lord Hereward’s 
mass-priest at Brunn, and who had performed the 
marriage-rites for his lord and the Ladie Alftrude at 
Ey. But the true-hearted monks of Spalding, and 
the monks that had fied from Ely, took part in the 
ceremony in the chapel, as afterwards in the feast in 
the hall; for notwithstanding all the mischief that the 
monks of Ely had done him, Hereward was still homo 
monacliorum , or a lover of monks—provided only they 
were true Saxon monks, and had no dealings with the 
Normans. But all true Saxons and bold fenners for 
many miles round feasted at Spalding on Elfric’s wed¬ 
ding day; the freedmen being entertained according 
to their degree, and the churls and serfs according to 
their degrees. Alefric, the deacon, put these things 
into a book, but the pages are now missing. 


CHAPTER XXVII 


HERE WARD STILL FIGHTS 

At the return of spring Duke William being at 
Warwick Castle, on the pleasant river Avon, gave 
forth his mandate for the collecting of a great army 
to proceed against the Lord of Brunn. Much had it 
vexed and grieved his proud soul that Hereward 
should have escaped from the Camp of Refuge in the 
Isle of Ely, and have made his name terrible in other 
parts; for, during the winter, Peterborough and 
Stamford—ay, Grantham and Newark—had heard 
the war-cry of the Lord of Brunn, and the Normans 
there had been plundered by his band; and further 
still, where Nottingham looks down upon Trent, 
Hereward had carried his successful foray. ' By the 
splendour,’ quoth Duke William, as he thought upon 
those things, ‘ I would give back all the Saxon lives 
that were taken near Ely for the life of this one man, 
who hath more power of mischief in him than all the 
Saxons put together. Or I would give to him the 
broadest earldom in all England if he would but 
submit and be my liege-man ! I need such a soldier, 
for the men that followed me from Normandie are 
become all rich in this fat land, and risk not them¬ 
selves in battle as they used to do when their fortunes 
were to make by sword and lance. This shall be 

thought of again, albeit my half-brother Odo and all 

407 



408 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


my Normans have vowed the death of that terrible 
Lord of Brunn, and think that every hide of land left 
to a Saxon is so much robbed from them/ 

During the spring months another mighty host was 
collected from out of the several shires of Huntingdon, 
Cam-Bridge, Leicester, Nottingham, Derby, Warwick, 
and others; and viscomtes and comtes, and knights 
of great fame and long experience in war, were placed 
in command, and were ordered to encompass the 
Lord of Brunn, and make an end of him or of his 
resistance. No stores were spared; nothing was 
spared that was thought likely to forward the one 
great object. Scarcely had William made a greater 
array of strength when he first landed at Pevensey, 
to march against King Harold at Hastings. 

But Herew r ard, that cunning captain and excellent 
soldier (inclytus miles') was not idle during this season : 
he went hither and thither throughout the country 
on the Wash and the whole fen country, calling upon 
the fenners to be steady and true to him and their 
native land; and to get their bows and arrows ready, 
and to sharpen such swords and axes, or bill-hooks 
and spear-heads, as they might have ; and to be ever 
in a state of readiness to fight, if fighting could stead 
them, or to retreat with their cattle into the inac¬ 
cessible places and the labyrinths among the waters 
and the meres. And the wandering menestrels and 
gleemen, who had been driven hitherward from all 
other parts of England, with Elfric, who was as good 
a gleeman as any of the number, went from) one 
township in the fens to another, singing the Saxon 
songs which did honour to the Lord of Brunn, and 
told how often he had prevailed in fight over the 
Norman invaders. And at the sound of these songs 
the fenners gave up their peaceful occupations and 


HE REWARD STILL FIGHTS 409 

prepared for war; while many hundreds went at once 
to join the standard of the Lord of Brunn. The men 
of Holland mounted themselves on their tall stilts, 
and came wading across marsh and mere unto the 
manor-house of Spalding; others came thither in 
their light skerries ; others came on foot, with their 
fen-poles in their hands, leaping such waters and 
drains as could be leaped, and swimming across the 
rest like the water-fowls of the fens. Loud blew the 
Saxon horn everywhere; the monks of Ely could 
hear it in their cells by night, and their guests the 
Norman warriors, who ventured not to come forth 
beyond Hadenham or Turbutsey, could hear it in the 
hall or refectory by day. The country seemed all 
alive and stirring, and full of strange sights; but the 
strangest sight of all was that of the men from the 
shores of the Wash marching in troops on their high 
stilts, carrying their bows and quivers and swords and 
pikes at their backs, and looking, at a distance, with 
their long wooden shanks and their bodies propped 
in the air, like troops of giant cranes or herons. 
And ever as they went, and whether they went upon 
stilts or upon their own feet, or in flitting skerries, or 
in heavier and slower boats, these brave fenners sung 
in chorus the good songs which they had learned from 
the gleemen. In this wise the Lord of Brunn had a 
great force collected and in arms by the time of 
summer, when the waters had abated and the green 
fields were showing themselves, and the Normans 
were beginning to march, in the fantastic hope of 
encircling Hereward as hunters gird in a beast of 
prey. There were no traitors here, as at Ely, to 
show the short and safe ways across the fens; and 
Ivo Taille-Bois, the only Norman chief that could be 
said to know a little of the wild and difficult country, 




410 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


was a close prisoner in the house at Spalding, where 
he tried to beguile the tedium of his captivity by 
playing almost constantly at dice with the two 
Norman knights who had been captured with him in 
the marsh. Add to all this that the Normans, who had 
not before tried what it was to make war in the fens, 
had a contempt of their enemy, and a measureless 
confidence in their own skill and prowess, and it will 
be understood that their discomfiture was unavoid¬ 
able. They came down from the upland country in 
separate bodies, and towards points far apart; and 
before they could place themselves, or contract their 
intended circle and give the hand to one another, 
Hereward attacked them separately, and beat them 
one by one. Nor did the Normans fare much better 
when they gave up their plan of circle and united 
their forces in one head. The Lord of Brunn, who 
had counted upon being driven from Spalding into 
the wilderness, found not only that he could maintain 
himself there, but that he could also hold his own 
good house at Brunn; for, when the Norman host 
marched upon that manor, they fell into an ambus¬ 
cade he had laid for them, and suffered both loss and 
shame, and then fled from an enemy they had hardly 
seen; for the fenners had willow-trees for their 
shields, or they had bent their bows in the midst of 
the tall growing rushes. Thus passed the summer 
months; and Duke William was still on the northern 
borders, fighting against Malcolm Caenmore ; and as 
that Scots war became more and more obstinate, the 
Duke was compelled to call to his aid nearly the 
whole of his splendid chivalry, and almost every 
Norman foot-soldier that he could prudently withdraw 
from England. With such mighty forces Duke 
William marched from the left bank of the Tweed to 


HERE WARD STILL FIGHTS 411 


end of the Frith of Forth, and all through the 
Lothians : and thereupon the Scots king, albeit he 
would not deliver up the Saxon nobles who had taken 
refuge at his court, came and agreed with Duke 
William, and delivered hostages, and promised to be 
his man. But by this time another year was spent, 
and the fens were again impracticable ; and, more¬ 
over, the Norman conqueror was compelled to tarry 
long at Durham, in order to settle the north country. 

Before the quinzane of this Nativity the goodly 
stock of Lord Here ward was increased by the birth of a 
daughter, and Elfric was a father. The two children 
were baptized on the same day; and at the feast, 
which was given in the same hall at Spalding wherein 
Ivo Taille-Bois and the Ladie Lucia had given their 
great feast for the christening of their first-born, the 
merry sword-bearer said, f Well, we be still here ! 
and it is now my opinion that I shall be a grandfather 
before the Normans shall drive us out of the fens! ’ 
The carefully guarded Norman prisoners of rank and 
note were very sad; but Ivo Taille-Bois was the 
saddest of them all on this festal day, for his wife and 
child were far away from him, living under the 
protection of the primate Lanfranc at Canterbury, 
and, much as he had tried, he could get no news of 
them; nor could he see any prospect of regaining his 
liberty, inasmuch as the Lord of Brunn declared that 
he wanted not money, and was determined to keep 
him and his men as hostages. 

With another year there came fresh preparation 
for invading the fen country, and giving the death¬ 
blow to Saxon liberty by destroying Hereward. But 
again the saints befriended the last of the Saxons, for 
great commotions burst out in Normandie, and in the 
county of Maine the people rose to a man against the 



412 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


tyrannies and oppressions of Duke William; and 
thus the Conqueror was constrained to pass over into 
France with all the troops he could collect. Before 
he went he sent once more to offer a free pardon to 
the Lord of Brunn and a few of his adherents ; but 
Hereward said that, in fighting for the liberties and 
old laws of his country, he had not done that which 
called for pardon : and as the terms proposed were 
otherwise inadmissible, the Lord of Brunn had rejected 
them all, and had told the proud Duke that he would 
yet trust to his sword, and to the brave fenners, and 
to the inexpugnable country he had so long occupied. 
Aided by many thousands of native English soldiers 
whom he carried over with him into Normandie and 
Maine, and who there fought most valorously for him, 
Duke William conquered the men of Maine and 
reduced them to his obedience. But this occupied 
him many months; and when he returned into Eng¬ 
land, it was to put down another insurrection and a 
widespread conspiracy, which were headed not by the 
Saxon nobles, but by Roger Fitz-Osborne, Raoul de 
Gael, and other nobles of Norman or French birth, 
who were not satisfied with the vast estates and high 
titles they had obtained in England, but wanted more, 
and had long been saying that William the Bastard 
was a tyrant in odium with all men, and that his 
death would gladden their hearts. Battles were 
fought and sieges were made before the Duke had 
triumphed over this confederacy; and while he was 
thus fighting and laying sieges, the Lord of Brunn 
reigned as a king in the fen country, and kept all the 
countries thereunto adjacent in a state of constant 
alarm. The herds and flocks of Hereward and his 
associates increased and multiplied the while; the 
drained and enclosed grounds gave their bountiful 


HEREWARD STILL FIGHTS 413 

crops; the rivers and meres seemed more than ever to 
abound with fish and wild-fowl; and whatsoever else 
was wanted was supplied by successful forays to the 
upland countries and to the sea-coasts: so great was 
the plenty, that even the poor bondmen often ate 
wheaten bread—white loaves which might have been 
put upon the table of my Lord Abbat of Ely. The 
Ladie Alftrude and the wife of the sword-bearer were 
again mothers (so gracious were the saints unto 
them!); and Elfric’s first-born son was grown big 
enough to show a marvellous similitude to his father, 
specialiter about the laughing mouth and merry eyes. 

Having nothing else upon hand for that present, 
William sent another great army to try their fortunes 
in the fen country; and (grieves me to say !) many of 
these soldiers were native English, and some few of 
them men from the Isle of Ely, who had experience 
in fen-warfare. Now was the manor-house of Brunn 
retaken, and now was Lord Hereward compelled to 
abandon Spalding, and to get him gone into the heart 
of Lincolnshire with his family and his people, and all 
his friends, and his Norman prisoners; but he drove 
off his cattle with him, and he found other herds 
where he went; and he found, moreover, subjugated 
townships and Norman town-governors unprepared to 
resist him. Some men do say that he had with him 
scant three hundred fighting men; but he flitted so 
rapidly from place to place, and so multiplied his 
attacks, that the Normans ever thought he had many 
thousands. And when the great Norman army 
marched against him in Lindsey in the north, Here¬ 
ward doubled them, and marched back to the south 
into Kesteven; and when they came to look for him 
in Kesteven, either he was back in Lindsey, or con¬ 
tinuing his course to the south, he got him into 




414 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


Holland and that flooded country near the Wash, 
where the Normans never could penetrate, and where 
every man that lived and went upon tall stilts was 
his liegeman. Here, in Holland, and in perfect 
safety, chiefly abided the Ladie Alftrude, and the 
women and children, and the Norman prisoners. 
The name of the Lord of Brunn was more than ever 
sounded throughout broad England, and from the 
Wash to the Humber it was a name of dread to all 
Normans and friends of Normans. Every feat of arms 
or skilful stratagem inspired some new song or tale; 
and the gleemen were never idle, and were never 
unhonoured. 


CHAPTER XXVIII 


THE HAPPY END 

There chanced to be one very hard winter, and the 
rivers and streams were frozen over, as well as the 
bogs and swamps. It was such a winter as one of 
those in which King Canute went to visit the monks 
of Ely. Then the nobles of Canute’s court said, 
* We cannot pass; the king must not pass on the 
slippery, unsafe ice, which may break and cause us 
all to be drowned in the fen-waters.’ But Canute, 
like the pious and stout king that he was, up and said, 
1 Hold ice or break ice, I will keep the feast of the 
Purification with the good monks of Ely ! An there 
be but one bold fenner that will go before over the ice 
by Soham mere and show the way, I will be the next 
to follow ! ’ Now there chanced to be standing amidst 
the crowd one Brithmer, a fenner of the Isle of Ely, 
that was called, from his exceeding fatness, Budde, or 
Pudding; and this heavy man stood forward and said 
that he would go before the king and show him a way 
on the ice across Soham mere. Quoth Canute, who, 
albeit so great a king, was but a small, light man, 

1 If the ice can bear thy weight, it can well bear mine ! 
So go on, and I follow ! ’ So Brithmer went his way 
across the bending and cracking ice, and the king 
followed him at a convenient distance; and one by 

one the courtiers followed the king, and after a few 

415 





416 THE CAMP OF REFUGE 

falls on the ice they all got safe to Ely. And, for the 
good deed which he had done, King Canute made fat 
Brithmer, who was but a serf before, a free man, 
and gave unto him some free lands, which Brithmer s 
posterity hold and enjoy unto this day by virtue of 
the grant made by King Canute. But there was not 
a fenner of Lord Here ward’s party, fat or lean, that 
would show the Norman a way across the ice ; and 
the Duke was in no case to undertake any such adven¬ 
turous journey, and hardly one of his chiefs would 
have exposed himself and his people to such a march, 
and to the risks of a sudden thaw; and the Saxons 
passed the seasons of frosts without any alarm, albeit 
every part of the fens was passable for divers weeks. 

Duke William was now waxing old and growing 
exceedingly fat, in sort that he could not bestir him¬ 
self as he had been used to do. At the same time his 
sons, who had grown into man’s estate, had become 
very undutiful, and even rebellious. Robert, his first¬ 
born, who was short in his legs, but very lofty in 
spirit, claimed as his own the duchy of Normandie 
and the county of Maine, alleging that the dominion 
of those countries had been promised to him by his 
father, and that his father ought to rest satisfied 
with the great kingdom of England. And although 
William had told Robert that he would not throw off 
his clothes until he went to bed—meaning thereby to 
say that he would give up none of his principalities 
and powers until he went to his grave—that impatient, 
furious young man showed that he would not wait 
and be patient. The family of the Conqueror was a 
brotherhood of Cains. Robert, less favoured by nature 
than they, thought that his father always gave prefer¬ 
ence to his younger brothers, William and Henry : and 
being in France, in the little town of Aigle, William 


THE HAPPY END 


417 

and Henry, after playing at dice, as was the fashion 
with milites, made a great noise and uproar, to the 
great disturbance of their elder brother; and when 
Robert remonstrated with them from a courtyard 
beneath, they called him Shorthose, and emptied a 
pitcher of water upon his head. Thereupon Robert 
drew his sword and would have slain both his brothers ; 
but being prevented in that, he raised the standard of 
revolt against his own father, and endeavoured to 
surprise the city and strong castle at Rouen. Here, 
too, Robert failed of success, but he fled into Brittanie ; 
and he was now visibly supported, not only by many 
Breton chiefs and by the great Count of Anjou, but 
also by Philip the French king, who never could 
stomach the power and greatness to which the son 
of the harlot of Falaise had attained. Now, while 
all this mischief was brewing, Duke William felt that 
there were many of the barons in Normandie in whom 
he could put no manner of trust, and he well knew 
that too many of the great Normans settled in England 
were unsteady in their allegiance to him. In this 
state of things it behoved him more than ever to 
insure tranquillity in England before he should again 
cross the seas, and to endeavour to secure the good¬ 
will of the Saxon people, who were gradually becoming 
accustomed to his rule, and who had but so recently 
shown how valorously they could fight for him when 
he put his trust in them. And therefore had he some¬ 
what relaxed the rigour of his government towards the 
English people, and had made promise to many native 
nobles that he would govern the country according to 
the good laws of Edward the Confessor. Now some 
of these English nobles were closely allied by blood 
with the Ladie Lucia, and consequently with the 
Ladie Alftrude; and was not the Ladie Lucia the 

2 D 




418 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


wife of Duke William’s own nephew, Ivo Taille-Bois ? 
And was not the Ladie Alftrude wife unto Hereward 
the Lord of Brunn, who held that nephew in duresse, 
and who had for so many years prevented Ivo from 
enjoying the wide domains of his spouse ? Perhaps 
Ivo had not been an altogether unkind husband, or it 
may be that the two children which she had borne 
unto him carried a great weight in his favour in the 
mind and heart of Lucia, who, certes, had long been 
very anxious for the liberation and return of her 
French husband. Some good Saxons at the time 
thought that this was un-Saxonlike and mean and 
wicked in the fair heiress of Spalding; but there were 
many young dames, and not a few Saxon dames that 
could hardly be called young, who felt much as the 
Ladie Lucia felt about their Norman husbands. But 
go and read the story of old Rome and the Sabine 
women ! Nay, go read the Evangil, which tells us 
how the wife will give up everything for her husband. 
And, crede milii, these womanly affections and instincts 
helped more than anything else to make disappear 
the distinction between the conquering and the con¬ 
quered race. 

Now after that manv of her kindred and friends 
had supplicated Duke William to offer to the Lord of 
Brunn such terms as might procure the release of her 
husband and the pacification of the fen country, the 
Ladie Lucia herself found her way to the court, and 
at the most opportune moment she knelt before the 
Conqueror with her two fair children. The hard heart 
of the Norman ruler was touched ; but politic princes 
are governed by the head and not by the heart, and it 
was only upon calculation that William determined 
to set at nought the opinions and the opposition of 
many of his advisers, and grant unto Hereward the 


THE HAPPY END 419 

most libera] terms of composition. In the presence 
of Lanfranc and other learned priests he caused to be 
written upon parchment, that he would give and grant 
friendship and the protection of the good old laws not 
only unto Here ward, but also unto all his friends, 
partisans, and followers whatsoever, of whatsoever 
degree; that the life, eyes, limbs, and goods of the 
poorest fenner should be as sacred as those of Lord 
Hereward himself; that Lord Hereward should have 
and hold all the titles of honour and all the lands 
which he had inherited from his ancestors or obtained 
by his marriage with the Ladie Alftrude; that he 
should be allowed to administer the Saxon laws among 
his people, as well at Ey as at Brunn; and that, in 
return for all these and sundry other advantages, 
nothing would be required from him further than that 
he should liberate, together with all other his Norman 
prisoners, Ivo Taille-Bois, viscomte of Spalding, and 
give the hand of friendship to Ivo, and restore to him 
the house and all the lands at Spalding, which were 
his by right of his marriage with the Ladie Lucia, and 
live in good cousinship with Ivo as became men so 
nearly connected through their wives, living at the 
same time in peace and friendship with all Normans, 
and pledging himself by his honour as a knight and 
by his vow pronounced with his right hand laid upon 
the relics of the Saxon saints he most esteemed, to 
be henceforward and alway true liegeman to King 
William and to his lawful successors. 

When a Saxon monk, known for his good English 
heart, and for the pious life he had led in Waltham 
Abbey, got into the fen country, and into the presence 
of the Lord of Brunn with this scroll, the gentle 
Ladie Alftrude, who had borne many toils and troubles 
without a murmur, was lying sick of a marsh fever, 



420 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 

which she had caught in Holland. This afflicting 
event was calculated to have some influence over her 
lord’s decision; but many other events and circum¬ 
stances, too numerous to name, all led to the same 
conclusion. No hope of the return of King Harold 
could be maintained any longer; the good old Saxon 
monk from Waltham vowed that his body was really 
buried in Waltham Abbey, that the river Lea, flowing 
fast by that Abbey gate, ever murmured his requiem, 
by night as by day, and that he himself, for years 
past, had said a daily mass for the peace of his soul. 
All the great Saxon chiefs had submitted long ago; 
Earl Waltheof, the last that had made a stir in arms, 
had been captured and beheaded outside Winchester 
town, and was now lying (though not without a strong 
odour of sanctity) in a deep grave at Crowland Abbey ; 
Edgar Etheling, the last representative of the line of 
King Alfred, was living contentedly, and growing fat, 
in a Norman palace at Rouen, with a pound of silver 
a day for his maintenance ; for he had long since 
given himself up, and sworn himself liegeman to 
William. Every rising had been put down in Eng¬ 
land, and all conditions of men seemed determined 
to rise no more, but to live in peace and good fellow¬ 
ship with the Normans; there was nothing but marry¬ 
ing and giving in marriage between the two races, 
and Saxon lords and other men of note were taking 
unto themselves Norman or French wives; and the 
great father of the whole Christian Church, the Pope 
at Rome, Gregory, the seventh of that name, had 
given plenary powers to Archbishop Lanfranc to 
reorganise the Saxon Church, and to excommunicate 
all such Saxons as submitted not to his primacy and 
to the government established. William, on the 
other hand, promised to take vengeance on none of 


THE HAPPY END 


421 


Lord Here ward’s followers, and to injure no fen-men 
for that which was past. 

‘ Elfric,’ said the Lord of Brunn, ‘ I think we must 
accept these terms, and cease this roving life among 
woods and meres. We have done what brave men 
can do : we have shown the Normans that England 
was not conquered in one fatal battle. We might yet 
hold out here, but for the rest of England we can do 
nothing; and our being here costs some Englishmen 
in the vicinage very dearly ! What sayest thou, my 
ever-trusty sword-bearer ? Wilt follow thy old master 
to London city, and make peace with Duke William 
and his Normans, who have never been able to over¬ 
come us ? ’ 

Quoth Elfric, 1 Where my lord goes there go I, be 
it to London city or to London tower. I think we 
have shown the Normans that England was not won 
by the battle of Hastings. An the Duke keep but his 
faith, we may live freely and happily in the good old 
house at Brunn, and among our honest fen folk.’ 

Of the monks who had fled from Ely with Elfric 
some were dead, but the gentle and good Father Elsin 
and the fiery and old Father Kenulph, and several of 
the lay-brothers were yet alive; and therefore Here- 
ward told the Duke’s emissary, the good monk from 
Waltham, that there must be an especial agreement 
to relieve these monks of Ely from the rules of their 
order and allow them to abide at Brunn or at Ey. 
The emissary was further told that, before Lord 
Hereward would submit, Duke William must swear 
upon the relics of his saints to observe the paction, 
to be true to every article of the agreement; and to 
give an earnest of his own sincerity and truth, the 
Lord of Brunn swore in the solemnest manner that 
he was ready to accept the conditions offered to him; 





422 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


and that, having once accepted them, nothing but 
treachery and violence on the other side would ever 
make him swerve from them so much as the breadth 
of a hair. 

The monk of Waltham went his way unto London ; 
and in as short a time as might be he came back again 
as far as the succursal cell at Spalding, attended by a 
goodly company of Norman and Saxon nobles, who 
came to bear witness that Lanfranc and the chancellor 
of the kingdom had put their signatures to the scroll 
as well as the king, and that William had sworn in 
their presence to be faithful to the deed. Now the 
Lord of Brunn went to Spalding with a goodly retinue 
of armed men, but not more numerous than the party 
which had come thither with the monk of Waltham; 
and having heard all that the monk and the lords had 
to tell him, and having carefully perused the deed (for 
Hereward had tasted books, and could read well in 
Latin), he wrote his name to the deed, and some of 
the principal men with him wrote their names; and 
then he sw r ore upon the relics to be liegeman to King 
William. And now William the Norman might in 
truth be called a king, and King of all England. It 
was in the Kalends of October, in the year of grace 
one thousand and seventy-six, and ten years after the 
great assize of God’s judgment at Hastings, that this 
thing was done and an end put to the resistance of 
the Saxons. 

He had sworn upon the relics of saints before now, 
and had broken his oath; but this time King William 
was true to the vow he made, for great and manifold 
were the advantages he reaped from the submission 
of the Lord of Brunn. It needs not to say that the 
great Saxon warrior, who had ever been true to his 
saints and a scrupulous observer of his word, was 


423 


THE HAPPY END 

more than faithful to every part of his engagement. 
After he had been to London city to pay homage to 
the king which it was the will of Heaven to place over 
the country, he returned to his good house at Brunn, 
and hung his sword and battle-axe upon the wall, 
never to take them down again unless England should 
be invaded by the Scots or Danes. King William, 
who went over into France to force his undutiful son 
Robert to forego his plots and rebellions, and to take 
vengeance on the French king (in both of which things 
he in the end succeeded), would with a glad heart have 
carried Hereward, the cunning captain, the great sol¬ 
dier, with him ; and to tempt him into that service 
he made offer of lofty titles and commands, and of 
many hides of land in the upland country; but Here¬ 
ward loved not to fight except for his own country and 
countrymen, and against those who had wronged him 
and oppressed them ; and instead of clutching greedily 
at the king’s offers, as many English lords had done, 
he preferred keeping his own in his own native parts, 
and ever remained plain Lord of Brunn. 

Ivo Taille-Bois returned to the manor-house at 
Spalding with his wife and children; and albeit his 
brow was sometimes darkened by the recollections of 
the wedding at Ey, and the defeat and surrender in 
the marsh, and the hard life he had led as a prisoner 
in the fens, he lived, on the whole, in very good fellow¬ 
ship with his neighbour and cousin of Brunn. Ivo 
never more harrowed the good Saxon monks of Spald¬ 
ing, who were left for a long time to their own peaceful 
and happy government. As for the traitorous monks of 
Crowland Abbey, who had brought back the Normans, 
they fared after the same manner as the false monks 
at Ely and the ungrateful monks at Peterborough; 
they were condemned by the Saxons, harassed and 




424 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


plundered by the Normans they had served, and 
fustigated by a sharp iracund abbat from France ; 
and thus they did penance for many years, and until 
most of them were dead, when their cells were occu¬ 
pied by truer men, and the abbey of Crowland began 
again to be the revered place it had been in former 
times. 

As Lord Here ward had ever been averse to cruelty, 
and constant in his endeavours to prevent his people 
being cruel to the prisoners they took in battle, the 
Normans had no scores of vengeance against him; 
and when they found that they were not to be grati¬ 
fied by dividing his broad lands among them, as they 
had long expected to do, they lived in a neighbourly 
manner with him, and even sought his friendship. Not 
one of them but allowed that he had been a great 
warrior ; and when the monks of their nation, who 
had seen much of the war in England with their own 
eyes, began to chronicle the war and to relate the 
high emprises of William the Conqueror, maugre their 
Norman prejudices, they paid a tribute of praise and 
admiration to the military skill and the indomitable 
courage and perseverance of Here ward, the son of 
Leofric, Lord of Brunn. 

There were troubles in the land after the year of 
grace one thousand and seventy-six, but they came 
not near to Brunn. Twenty-four years after the 
submission of Hereward, when the Conqueror was in 
his grave, and his son Rufus had been slain by the 
arrow of a Norman knight, his other son, Henry the 
Clerk, ascended the throne, and in so doing he passed 
the good Charter called the Charter of Liberties, where¬ 
by he restored the laws of King Edward the Confessor, 
and engaged to redress all the grievances of the two 
preceding reigns. And shortly after his accession to 


THE HAPPY END 


425 


the throne, King Henry still further conciliated his 
Anglo-Saxon subjects by espousing a Saxon wife, the 
fair Maud, daughter of Malcolm, King of Scots, and 
of Margaret the good queen, the relation of King 
Edward the Confessor, and of the right kingly kin of 
England. Maud had been sent from Scotland at a very 
early age and committed to the care of her English 
aunt Christina, the pious Abbess of Wilton. Many 
great Norman lords, as Alain the Lord of Richmond, 
and William de Garenne, Earl of Surrey, had asked her 
in marriage, but she had refused them all; and even 
when Henry Beauclerc, a crowned and anointed king, 
made suit for her hand, and offered to place her by his 
side on the throne which her ancestors had sat upon 
for ages, she testified a preference for the quiet religious 
life she was leading ; and it required the representations 
and entreaties of many noble Saxon friends to make 
her forego her purpose of entering into religion. ‘ O 
most noble and fair among women/ said the Saxons, 
c if thou wilt, thou canst restore the ancient honour of 
England, and be a pledge of reconciliation and friend¬ 
ship ; but if thou art obstinate in thy refusal, the 
enmity between the two races will endure, and the 
shedding of human blood know no end ! ’ To these 
representations she yielded; and those Saxons who 
had advised her lived to see much good to England 
proceed from the marriage, which was a great step 
towards that intermixture of the Saxon aud Norman 
races which had been begun many years before, and 
which we have seen proceed so rapidly. The elevation 
of the fair Maud to the throne filled the hearts of the 
English with joy, for not only was she their country¬ 
woman and a descendant from the royal stock of Alfred 
the Great, but she was also at the time of her marriage 
beautiful in person, charitable unto the poor, and dis- 

2 E 



426 


THE CAMP OF REFUGE 


tinguished above all the ladies of her time by a love for 
learning and learned men. Elfric the sword-bearer, 
who was yet in the prime vigour of life, brought 
to mind the dying prediction of Frithric the Abbat 
of St. Albans, and said joyously to his lord, that 
f England would be England still, and that the 
Saxon tongue and laws were things that could not 
be rooted out! ’ 

‘ Elfric/ said Lord Hereward, ‘ the great stream of 
our old Saxon blood is fast absorbing the less stream 
of Norman blood, and so will it continue to do. 
The children of Normans, being born in England and 
suckled by Saxon nurses, will cease to be Normans. 
All men love to keep that which they have gotten ; 
and as our old Saxon laws are far more free than those 
of France, and give more security for life and goods, and 
oppose a stronger barrier to the tyranny of princes, the 
Normans that now live among us, or their sons that 
shall succeed them, will, for their own sakes, cling to 
our old laws, and help the chiefs and the great body of 
the English people to make the spirit of them to be en¬ 
during in the land.’ 

Thus talked the Lord of Brunn and his faithful 
sword-bearer; and thus they lived to teach their 
children’s children. 

Hereward continued to live comfortably and peace¬ 
ably with his neighbours and with all men, and he died 
in peace after he had lived many more years. Both he 
and the Ladie Alftrude reached a patriarchal age, and 
they left a patriarchal stock behind them. They were 
buried with all honour in Crowland Abbey, which, by 
this time, had become a holier and a better governed 
house than ever it had been before. A learned monk 
of Crowland wrote good verses in Latin upon the tomb¬ 
stone of the Lord of Brunn; but we find in our own 


THEHAPPYEND 427 

home tongue lines which might have been a still better 
epitaph :— 

Him loved young, him loved old, 

Earl and baron, dreng and kayn, 

Knight, bondeman, and swain, 

Widows, maidens, priests, and clerks, 

And all for his good werkes. 

He loved God with all his might, 

And holy kirk and soothe and right. 

And that there might be a lasting record of his prowess 
in battle and skill in war, his good and learned mass- 
priest, Alefricus Diaconus, had written before he died, 
and in the same old English tongue, a goodly book of 
the deeds of Hereward, the great soldier; and albeit 
this goodly book, by some evil chance, hath disappeared, 
Hugo Candidus and Robert of S waff ham, two right 
learned monks of the abbey of Peterborough, have put 
the substance of it, and such portions as could be found, 
into their treatise intituled, De Gestis Herewardi 
Inclyti Militis. 


Printed by T. and A. Constable, Printers to Her Majesty 
at the Edinburgh University Press 



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